


Control

by Shampain



Series: Bury A Friend [3]
Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Carol is very possessive, Dom/sub, F/M, Femdom, Rated for future chapters, Violence, battles, mature content, plus porn, the usual stuff you'd see in an action movie, weird domesticity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2019-11-18 08:03:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18116681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shampain/pseuds/Shampain
Summary: Breaking Yon-Rogg out of prison was easy. Living with him is a bit trickier."Control it," he'd always told her. But can she control him?





	1. walking away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can it really be called a jail break if nothing gets broken?

Prison was boring, and now it was worse. He blamed it on Vers. _Carol_.

Maybe he was growing stupid, without anything truly interesting to keep him alert. He had books, certainly – he had never been a voracious reader until imprisonment, though he found he enjoyed it now – but he needed something more. He needed a good fight. Maybe that was why, when Vers pressed herself into his personal space, he gave in. She was the closest thing to battle he'd had in years.

He liked to tell himself that, because it was easier that way. But Yon-Rogg was nothing if not methodical in dissecting his thoughts and his emotions, and he knew the major part of why he submitted to Vers was because he just _wanted_ to. He always had, at least once he had stopped seeing her as some tiny insect who had gotten in his way those years ago. That low opinion of her had lasted until about four hours after she woke up from the transfusion and took Minn-Erva down in a practice session.

Now, prison was eating him alive. Monotony could be handled after it went on long enough, so long as ennui was kept at bay. But with the possibility of Vers coming by it had broken up his carefully maintained defences, so now each hour felt twice as long, his awareness forever focused on an event that may not ever happen again but was too potent to forget.

He hated it.

He laid back on his bed, arms up and hands folded beneath his head with his eyes closed. Just thinking, listening. It felt like his senses were always alive and thrumming, forever expectant. It made rest difficult, but if he allowed his mind to wander it sometimes helped the time to pass quickly.

If he hadn't been in such a state, though, he might have missed what was happening. A strange hum seemed to reach his ears and his eyes flickered open, alert. Once he was certain what he was hearing was not part of the prison air system, he got off the bed and made his way to the door.

He knelt, pressing his ear to the thinnest part of his door, sensing for vibrations in the metal as much as he was for any noise. The prison moved like clockwork, in three shifts. Yon-Rogg was part of the first shift, currently in his cell but not yet with the lights out; lights out was happening for shift two. The third shift was in the prison common areas.

And it seemed third shift was rioting.

He stepped back from the door and moved to the cot, reaching underneath it. When they'd come to replace it after he and Vers had broken the first one, they'd also taken the cuffs that she had left behind in the room, as they could be weaponized. And Yon-Rogg _had_ weaponized them, just not in a way that they had noticed. The cuffs had been connected by a cable, which had been made up of several thin wire cords gathered together by a rubber casing for durability. He'd gone ahead and used the sharp edge of one of the attached cuffs to remove some of the cords, and woven them into a garrote.

He was just looping it around his hand when an alarm started going off, and the door to his cell slid open.

He stepped neatly to the side and leaned against the wall, canting his gaze so he could see out into the hallway while remaining unseen. The last thing he wanted to do was get caught up in a barrage of prisoners cascading out of their cells – a big group would attract guards, not to mention the fact he didn't feel like getting caught up in any personal grudges along the way. He waited, counting slowly to thirty.

Stepping out into the empty hall, he quickly got his bearings. For the most part he knew the ins and outs of the prison, but some of the layout he could only guess at from working knowledge of similar buildings. He could make an educated guess on where the prisoner storage was, though.

Yon-Rogg lived simply. Unlike most soldiers who found themselves without a home, he had not backslid or been enticed by a life of wealth and excess. Instead, he focused on survival. It seemed the easiest way for him to cope with what had happened.

The Kree battle suits were worth hundreds of thousands of credits, and when Yon-Rogg had been dishonourably discharged from the Starforce he had taken his suit and a spare with him. Not to sell, but because the tech was ahead of most other civilizations, and it was going to help keep him alive. The first suit had been destroyed on one of his jobs, but he still had the second one, and he had absolutely no intention in leaving it behind to moulder in some storage locker.

 

-

 

Carol had meant to take her time, think up the best and most efficient way of springing Yon-Rogg from prison. That is, until she was scrolling through her list of local alerts and saw the advertisement for an auction set to happen in fifty-three hours.

Apparently, the prison was running low on funds. That kind of thing happened when it was an offshoot of a few different governments and nobody wanted to pay the bill.

She figured she had two choices. She could go and get him – she had a mental picture of slinging him over her shoulder and running away – or she could pay for him. She preferred the first method, of course, but once she saw the starting bid for him that clinched it. She was never, _ever_ going to tell him that price, because then his ego would explode. His military record was only available to anyone who was part of the Kree government and had the right security clearance, so naturally the prison could not estimate his proper value as a soldier. They could, however, very easily come up with an amount someone would be willing to pay to get him on his knees.

It was a lot.

What would be cheaper would be bribing a few guards to begin a little mayhem and then strolling right in, so that was what Carol did instead. It was remarkably easy. She was dressed to be ignored in black pants and a white shirt, and she walked down the hallways relatively unmolested. If a few other prisoners got away, Carol wasn't incredibly worried; she'd long ago come to terms with the fact that despite her powers the universe was too big and too unwieldy for her to fix it on any level. The world was a gigantic forest and she had a supply of water, so she could focus on putting out fires and that was pretty much all she could do.

Besides, she'd only bribed the guards to open the doors for Level Three prisoners and under. Yon-Rogg was dangerous, but the crime he was in for meant security for him was lower. Thieves, con men, and similar were free in the halls, but murderers, deranged lunatics and serial offenders were still securely locked up.

She hadn't expected him to stay in his cell, but she was hoping she would get there in time where she didn't have to track him down. It was empty, and he was nowhere in sight. “Hm,” she said. “Follow the chaos, I guess.”

She had an idea of where he might go, so she followed her instincts and was gratified to see she appeared to be going in the right direction, if stray patches of blood were any indication (none of it, she was glad to see, blue). She stopped next to an inmate crouched down against the wall, cradling a broken hand and wailing angrily.

“Hey,” she said. “You see a devastatingly handsome Kree warrior anywhere around here?”

He spat a few curses at her, so she shrugged, taking that as a yes, and continued on.

She had been acting without thinking too much about her choice, but as she traversed the corridors she was forced to consider just what she was doing. Was she being helpful or selfish? Both, probably. But Hell, she was sure she could keep Yon-Rogg out of trouble better than the prison system did. And if some bastard out there had ended up buying him at auction, he'd probably murder them anyway. So, really, she was saving someone.

Yes, she would keep telling herself that.

Ah, there he was, right at the north entry point for prisoner storage, and attempting to hack the datapad that would get him in. She stopped, placing her hands on her hips, and shook her head. She'd known he would come here, but she still found it ridiculous.

“You actually stopped to get your stuff?” she asked.

He glanced over his shoulder and didn't seem surprised in the slightest to see her there. “This isn't the best time for a conjugal visit,” he said. “I'm busy.”

“I can see that,” she said. “But I was just thinking we take it somewhere else. Can I give you a ride?”

“If you can get me in there, first.”

“I don't think-”

“My suit's in there,” he said, frankly.

 _Ah_. She still had her own suit, so she didn't need any explanation as to why he wanted his. Packed with sophisticated tech and able to withstand some of the strongest blows, they were invaluable. She dug out her key card and scanned it at the door.

“Hurry up,” she told him as he went in. “Or I'm leaving you here.”

“You won't,” he said, without looking back.

She rolled her eyes and went to stand by another door across the hallway, only to jump in surprise when someone began banging on it on the other side.

“Shit,” she muttered, placing her hand over her heart. It had been a long time since anything had managed to startle her.

“Please!” someone on the other side was screaming. “Please, can you let me out? I have to get out of here!”

She took a look at the screen beside the door, fingers flicking over the keys. No name for the prisoner, and the details of their crimes appeared to be redacted. Vaguely unsettling.

“I'm sorry,” Carol called back. “I just don't know if you're some kind of murderer.”

The banging continued. “I can't go to auction,” the person begged. “Please. _Please_!”

“Auction?” Yon-Rogg asked, appearing back in the corridor. He had a canvas kit bag slung over his shoulder and his eyebrows were raised.

Carol ignored him, continued to look at the information next to the door. “Huh,” she said. “This is a bit higher security than you, Yon. Like, quite a bit. I had all the Level Three and under risks let out. This looks like a Level Eight.” She slipped the key card back out from her pocket. Something about the tone of the person calling to her...

“And you're going to let them out anyway?”

“Please!” whoever was on the other side continued, with a few extra loud bangs.

Carol shrugged. “Whoever they are, they have manners,” she said. And probably didn't have a weapon; and if it turned out they were a monster with three cannibalistic heads, she'd simply push them back in and close the door. Her fingertips darted over the datapad to enter the higher security code, then she waved her card in front of it again. It beeped happily and the door slid open.

It was a woman with long, dark hair, a pale face and the lightest of blue eyes. The prison clothes clung to her hips and breasts in a very flattering way; she would have fetched more than even Yon-Rogg. She grabbed Carol and kissed her on the mouth.

There was a strange frisson surrounding her; Carol felt the hair at the back of her neck stand up. She wasn't human, she wasn't Kree. She was something infinitely stranger.

Then the woman turned, grabbed Yon-Rogg, and kissed him too.

“Mmm, many thanks,” the woman said, licking her lips. She considered them both, like maybe she wanted to stick around with them instead, before backing up. “I'm going to leave before you change your mind,” she declared, turning on her heel and speeding off in the opposite direction they were going.

Carol wiped the back of her mouth, shaking her head, and glanced over at Yon-Rogg – and tried not to gape when she saw his lips quirk into a smile. “You're smiling?” she said. “Because of a _kiss_?”

“No,” he said, and pointed. “Because she stole the key card right out of your hand.”

Carol looked down at her palm. She hadn't even felt the card's absence, let alone it leaving her fingers. “Huh, she did,” she said, impressed. “Ah, well, not like we need it anymore, anyway. Come on, we're getting out of here.”

“Whatever that was, I'm not sure you should have let it out,” he observed, as they moved briskly down the corridor.

“It was a woman, not a thing,” she said. “Well. Woman-presenting.”

He just shook his head, but he seemed prepared not to argue. Good. She was already getting tired of him; why had she thought this was a good idea, anyway?

Oh, right. She liked him. Despite his lies, the fact he tried to kill her at one point, and that she once had to stop him from having a shipload of war refugees executed because that's what he had been trained to do... Despite _all of that and more,_ she liked him.

 

-

 

How could it have been that simple? Because for the past forty years, Vers had lived her life as some sort of maverick, moving through the universe like a meteor that bounced off of every planet she hit. She had walked out of that prison with him with the same ease she had walked in. As her ship disengaged from the dock and they began to leave the prison behind them, he asked her how she managed it.

“Bribes, really?” he asked.

She shrugged. “That place has no official government body connected to it,” she said. “So it's mostly run on private security. Monetary donations makes the whole place operate. Most of the prisoners are flat broke so they can't barter with the guards for anything.”

“So you know I'm broke.”

“Of _course_ I know you're broke,” she said. She turned away from the view screens, apparently satisfied they had left the prison behind, and approached him. He tensed. Vers was hard to read, these days more than ever, and it was difficult to know if she meant to land a blow or bestow him with a touch.

“Hands up,” she ordered.

It was a pat down, of course. She started at his ankles and worked her way up. He gave her a faint smile as she tugged back the cuff of his shirt and found the garrote he'd hidden. “Ew, it's bloody,” she muttered, unwinding it from his wrist and then stuffing it in her back pocket.

“Not my blood.”

“Yeah, I know, it's green,” she said. She picked up his kit bag and slung it over her shoulder; obviously he wasn't allowed to have it until she'd rummaged through it properly. All to be expected when your best protege turned the tables and captured you. “Alright, now that that's over with: welcome to my ship, which is also my house. Rules: no trying to murder me, no escaping, no fashioning things into weapons without my say-so. I'm sure I'll think of other things, but for now those are the main ones.”

“And what do I get out of this arrangement?”

“How does 'not being in prison' sound?”

“ _This_ is a prison.”

“The food will be better.”

“You're being a fool,” he said. “I could turn against you at any moment.”

She rolled her eyes and scoffed, walking towards the pilot's seat and letting him know in no uncertain terms what she thought the likelihood of that was.

It irritated him, because he had been bluffing and she knew it. But he had to say it, anyway, to maintain some form of dignity. Because as much as he didn't want to admit it, Vers had rescued him, and that? He _hated_ that.

She shoved the kit bag under the seat and then leaned over the console, flipping a few switches, tapping at a pair of buttons. Then she nodded to herself. He didn't need to ask to know she was locking in coordinates, putting the ship on autopilot.

“Alright,” she said. “Follow me.”

The kitchen area of the ship was literally everything he would have expected from her: cluttered and chaotic. She also seemed to live entirely off of breakfast cereals from different planets. “What,” he said, holding one box up, “is this?”

She glanced over her shoulder as she rummaged in her cabinets. “Iron Man Blasters,” she said, cheerfully. “The marshmallow helmets taste like strawberries. Pretty good.”

It was hard to believe Supreme Intelligence thought they could actually harness Vers, when the logical response would have been to stick her in a test tube (something he himself had suggested; privately he was glad Supreme Intelligence had disagreed). Even on Hala she'd been fond of anything that had sugar in it, and kept a collection of sweets in her room that a child would envy. “How have you _not_ died of malnutrition yet?” It was probably the Kree blood in her veins. A Terran would be dead by now.

“Stop judging my life, and take this,” she said, shoving a glass of water in his hand. Then she showed him two pale, chalky-white tabs she held in her palm. He looked at them with distrust.

“No,” he said.

She didn't move. She was even still smiling, infuriatingly. “Yes,” she said.

“Whatever it is-”

“They're sleeping tabs,” she said. “Strong ones. They were fabricated to put you under for physically stressful space travel, but they couldn't get the formula strong enough to last very long. But they've gotten pretty popular for use in emergency surgeries.”

She wasn't selling them very well, and the look he gave her let her know that. She sighed.

“You've got a prisoner tracker, remember?” She pointed out. “I'm going to remove it.”

“I'd rather be awake for that.”

“And I'd rather you weren't,” she said. “Personally. And I have a few things to do, anyway, and I don't feel like worrying about you trying to climb into an escape pod while I'm busy. So you're going to take them.”

She saw he was about to argue, and she added, “ _Or_ I could just force them down your throat. Would you prefer that? Because we need to do this soon, before they decide to start looking for you.”

He sighed. He should have stayed in prison. He reached out for the tablets, but she closed her hand and shook her head. “Not here, or you'll be passed out on the floor, and then I'll be tripping over you,” she said, and nodded to his left. “Bedroom.”

“Surely,” he said, turning away from her, “there was an easier way for you to get someone in your bed.”

“Probably,” she agreed pleasantly, following him; she wasn't even going to deny it. What would the Supreme Intelligence have thought of this? Not the relationship, just the fact that the Kree had poured so many resources into their new warrior Vers, including getting him to train her, all so that she could just kidnap him forty years later because visiting him in a prison was apparently cramping her style. “But I was in the mood for a jailbreak today.”

“Kidnapping,” he corrected, sitting down on the edge of her bed. He focused on just her, not wanting to let his attention slide anywhere else, because even though he was on her ship, this was her bedroom, an intensely personal place. Even on Hala they'd veered clear of entering one another's chambers. He could not help but notice, though, that the covers were a mess and the bed undone.

She shrugged and presented him with the tabs again. He took them without complaint this time, chasing them quickly with the water before they dissolved in his mouth; these damn things never tasted any good.

She took the glass from him and set it on the side table, then stepped up close. She ran her fingers through his hair and he tipped his head back to look up at her. “Checking to make sure I actually swallowed?” he asked.

She raised one shoulder in a shrug. There was a part of her expression – playful – that was familiar, but another part unreadable, closed off. “They work fast, so I'd know soon enough,” she said. “But I told you before. I like the look of you, especially from this angle.”

“I don't have to worry about you taking any liberties with me while I'm out, do I?” he asked, dryly, wanting to change the subject without making it look like he was – flattery confused him. Though honestly, he didn't need any validation of her honour. He knew she wouldn't do anything to him besides what she said.

She gave him one of her crooked little grins. He'd always liked them, even when she threw them at him when he was busy lecturing her on emotions. “Never,” she said. “Unconscious people don't really _do_ it for me, you know? I like them alive and kicking.”

“How long, then?”

“Not long. Five hours, tops.”

She scraped her fingernails against the base of his skull, where his hair was cropped short, and he closed his eyes. First because it felt good, and then because it felt like the only thing he _could_ do. “Hm, told you they work fast,” he heard her say, and maybe he also heard her say “I've got you,” but that might have been a dream.

 

-

 

Carol rarely used the tablets, but she always took them out for the very same reason she'd already told him – they were fantastic for quick surgeries. Safer than most anaesthetics, and more available than painkillers and numbing agents. She found herself using them when she had to do something like help stitch up a child, or perform an amputation.

She laid him back on the bed, and then shoved up the sleeve on his left arm, pressing her thumbs down against the inside of his wrist and feeling her way up. Yes, there it was, she could feel the implant about an inch down from the crook of his elbow.

The tracker was higher tech than others she'd come across, which was good and bad. It was good in that it was smaller, and so the wound she had to give him would be less traumatic. It was bad in that if she didn't cut right the first time and missed, she was going to make a bigger mess of his arm than she needed to – and then she would have to deal with him asking her what the Hell she'd done to him once he woke up.

She retrieved her small medikit and unrolled it, selecting what she needed and setting it beside her so she could grab each piece after the other in quick succession. She swabbed the skin and, working fast, pressed the blade of her smallest scalpel against his skin.

Blue blood welled up immediately as she cut her way down. The implant was deep to prevent inmates from trying to remove it themselves, so she hoped she could do this in one slice. She also couldn't cut into the tracker itself at all, lest she break it. Then she'd be stuck fishing out a bunch of pieces from his arm – or, worse, she might accidentally short-circuit it while it was still in his flesh.

She dropped the knife and picked up a pair of long-nosed tweezers, digging in. She actually didn't think she would have been able to force him to take the tablets, so she was glad she didn't have to do this while he was awake. He would have sat still and quiet, but she would have been distracted all the same, knowing he was in pain.

The tweezers slipped in her hand. “Fuck,” she blurted out. When had her palms started sweating? She bit the inside of her cheek to focus herself, quested the tweezers further until she found the implant.

Carefully, not wanting to cause more trauma than she needed to, she pulled it out of his arm.

She held up the tracker to the light. She needed to bandage him up right away but for the moment she let herself be distracted. Through the thin blue layer of blood, its little red light blinked angrily. “He doesn't belong to you anymore,” she told it, and dropped it on the floor. She slammed her boot down with more force than she had intended.

 _He belongs to me_.

Then she picked up the gauze she had at the ready and began to tend to him before he bled all over her bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you probably noticed, this installment will have multiple chapters. The other ones could stand alone, but now this ship is sailing into uncharted waters and needs a bit more room to grow.  
> Also, the random prisoner Carol lets out is just a precursor for a future story if I ever get there, but for now I'm just gonna focus on them boning so whatever, don't worry about it.
> 
> For the record, just so you know, readers - you, yes YOU - this is all your fault.  
> (just kidding it's Brie and Jude's fault for being hot and my fault for being gay as hell)
> 
> Finally, since you've tagged along with me this far, this is the part where I link you to my tumblr because that's what we do here on ao3, doncha know! I'm [vodkertonic @ tumblr](http://vodkertonic.tumblr.com/)


	2. vers

She had Bush's _Sixteen Stone_ playing in the background while she directed her ship into the quieter corners of space. Gavin Rossdale's voice was always a nice addition to her work.

While Yon-Rogg had been out (and if she fussed over him a bit more than necessary after the surgery, well, there was no one to see) she had showered and changed into her favourite pair of pyjama pants with the llamas on them, and seated herself at her desk. She went through his record, again, and looked up what she could in a bit more detail.

It made her feel better that his work as a mercenary had less bloodshed than his military record. In a way, it made sense. In the Starforce, their unit had been highly trained for covert missions, not full on warfare – that was what Accusers were for. He had never struck her as cruel or sadistic. _Sin-eater_ , a word she had learned earlier in her life before joining the Kree, came to mind. That was more what he had been. He had devoted himself to a cause, and had been prepared to shoulder the moral burden. Thinking about it made her a bit sad, but she didn't let herself muse about it for too long. It was not her job to make amends or apologies for someone else.

A part of her had wanted to be sitting in bed with him when he woke up. She had a good book she needed to finish, and she could have wiled away her hours beside him. But she needed to get their ship into deep space, and besides – the last time she'd gotten a good look at him he'd appeared sleepless and tired. She would rather he rest. And without her presence, he would be able to gather himself without her eyes boring into him.

She respected his privacy, because in the end she respected _him_. She had trained under him too long to not feel that way.

'Testosterone' started playing. Her lips quirked into a smile.

Well, now that she felt a bit better about taking him on, it was time to deal with his prison record. The tracker was pulverized, but he was still a wanted man and a cash grab for bounty hunters. Technically speaking, if he had been purchased at auction that would have automatically fulfilled the terms of his sentence, but only if he had remained in indentured servitude for a certain period of time. But like Hell was she going to _bid_ for him, and it was cheaper to do a bit of hacking instead. The question was, could she do it, or would she need to find someone else? She sat in the pilot's seat and messed with a few controls. She needed to do a supply run anyway, so she set in the coordinates of a galactic stop where she had a few friends who might help point her in the right direction.

She heard movement in the back of the ship. He was awake; it had only been three hours, she marvelled. He must have fought against the sleeping tabs.

She didn't turn around to look at him, because she didn't want to see him if he had just woken up. There was a _look_ to him that she remembered very well. She'd always liked it, and while it had never been the reason she always woke him up earlier than he wanted, it was still something she had enjoyed witnessing whenever she'd knocked on his door.

“Oh, hey,” she said, keeping her eyes on the screen as it made calculations, hearing him approach. Seventeen hours to arrival at her chosen spaceport. “How's the arm? I've got a wound cauterizer around here somewhere, but I figured letting you heal naturally would leave less of a scar.”

He didn't answer, so she assumed she'd made the right call. It had nothing to do with vanity and everything to do with reputation. If he developed a scar there, it would not take long for anyone who saw it to figure out that he had been captive somewhere. It was a common spot to place trackers and similar tech, and it would be better for him if they just erased all evidence of it.

“You've been up to things while I was out, I see,” he remarked instead. He seated himself in the copilot's chair without asking. He had the sleepy look, she noted out of the corner of her eye. “I'm guessing I'm now locked out of everything?”

“Yup,” she said. “Did you wanna make a bet on how quickly you'll be able to break in and send us crashing towards a star?”

He leaned back in the seat, stretching his legs out. He had nice, long legs. And he was limber, still, despite his imprisonment keeping him from any real action. She averted her gaze before he caught her ogling him. “I'll only try to break it once I have somewhere to go.”

“Do you?”

“Maybe.”

She smiled to herself. “Alright,” she said. She leaned back in her seat and gave a long, full body stretch. “Let me know when that is, I'll get the booze out.”

He was looking at her legs. Admiring them? No – but that was a familiar expression and her small smile turned into a grin. “Admiring my pants?” she asked.

“What are they?” he asked.

“Llamas,” she said. “With Santa hats.”

“What language are you speaking in? I don't have a universal translator on me right now.”

“ _Ha_ ,” she said. He was teasing her, the way he used to by pretending he wasn't. She always teased everyone else in Starforce and he was always the only one who seemed to take to it and give it right back – unless they were on a job. Then he would point a gloved finger at her and tell her to 'knock it off' before one of their teammates got annoyed and punched her. “I like them.”

“They're hideous.”

She lolled her head to the side, against her shoulder, giving him a _look_ and raising her eyebrows. “Fine,” she said lightly. She heaved herself up and undid the knot of her drawstring, then pushed her pants down over her hips. If she shimmied a bit while she did it, who could blame her? She planted her hands on her hips, wearing only her underwear and a tank top. “There. Better?”

He had switched his gaze to staring out into the blackness of space. She was certain she was better to look at than a blank void, so he was obviously avoiding looking at her. “Well?” she prompted.

“Why are you so-”

“Because you're irritating,” she interrupted.

He cast a glare in her direction, and to his credit his eyes stayed above her neck. “ _I'm_ irritating?” he asked. “You just forced yourself into my life after forty years and now you're stripping in front of me to try and get a reaction. At the risk of sounding trite, you're the irritating one.”

“You forced yourself into my life first.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“And we both _live_ a long time, if you haven't noticed,” she snapped.

He frowned. “A year is a year, yes,” he said. “And we had six. Not long, though, in the grand scheme of things.”

“It was still long enough.” Long enough for what, though? She didn't actually know the answer.

He made an angry noise and started to get to his feet, but she was ready. She closed the short distance between him and grabbed his shoulders, propelling him back down into the seat. “No,” she said. “You don't get to leave.”

“Is that why you came and got me? To keep me under you watchful eye?”

“I got you because I want to work this out, whatever it is!” She raised her voice so loud she was almost yelling at him. Didn't he understand? He was a part of her, he always had been. And she was sure, now, that she was a part of him, regardless of how much he might try to deny it. He'd called for her in his sleep. He had told her he needed her. She would not forget, no matter how much he wanted her to.

He didn't move, but his gaze didn't waver from hers. He met her eyes. He looked calm but she knew he wasn't. He was good, she had to admit, as she watched the smooth plane of his face, unchanging and revealing nothing. Except for one thing: the pulse flickering madly in his neck.

Carefully, slowly, Carol reached out and pressed a fingertip to his neck. His eyelashes flickered and she felt his blood thrumming under her touch. _I see you_ , she thought, _I see all of you_. She climbed into his lap.

Unbidden, he pressed his face into her neck and she closed her eyes, feeling the warmth of his breath on her skin. Why did she feel this way about him? Was she fooling herself, or was there something real underneath all of the shit the Kree had forced down her throat? That was what she needed to find out.

She took his hands and placed them to the small of her back; he peeled her shirt up so he could smooth them up along her bare skin. They were warm and calloused and made her shiver.

She closed her eyes. She wanted him around, a part of her even ached for him. They were emotions that were starting to take root, making her feel like something was growing right on top of her heart, forcing its way in. She felt dizzy with the desire to kiss him, properly, an urge she had tamped down repeatedly because for some reason a kiss seemed too risky. She had been claiming him piece by piece, and a kiss seemed to give something back.

Her urge to possess him had something to do with their shared past, she knew. Carol had gone through her memories of the Kree and had paid special attention to Yon and the part he had played. Over the years her anger about it had faded, as she had no use for it, but the hurt remained. She'd thought he was her champion, but actually he was her slaver.

He was a product of his society and the military, though, as she had been in her own. And he had never been cruel to her – actually he seemed to protect her, in the grand scale of things, as she had clearly been his favourite soldier, a fact which had obviously bothered Minn-Erva to no end. She'd always been curious about his loyalties – how much of it to the Kree, and how much to her, a strange human who had demanded so much of his time and energy and, yes, emotions?

She was sitting right there in his lap. She could just ask him.

She scraped her fingernails down the back of his neck and he shivered. She felt his lips on her collarbone. _Or_ , she could just drag him to bed and they could get in a solid fuck and she could think about it later. First, though-

“Yon,” she said.

“Mmm.”

“Take a shower. You still smell like prison and that's not doing it for me anymore.”

She felt him huff against her neck. “About that,” he said, “have you managed to look through my bag, yet? I need my clothes.”

“No,” she said, flatly. “I plan on forcing you to live here naked.”

“Unsurprising.”

“I'll go through it now,” she said, levering herself out of his lap. “Anything sharp in there that I can cut myself on? Did you leave your scathing wit in there, maybe?”

Did he actually roll his eyes at her? He might have, she marvelled.

 

To her absolute lack of surprise, Yon-Rogg had a lot of weapons to his name. Most of them were energy based, but he had an arrangement of knives with actual blades, and of the two guns he had one required physical ammunition. He was prepared to do damage to anyone and anything.

The lock picks she found genuinely surprised her, though.

She didn't need to search any of his belongings thoroughly, though, except for the battle suit. That one, she knew, could conceal a whole host of surprises.

He'd changed the colour of it – she remembered with a smirk the first time he had balked at her changing the colours of her own suit. He couldn't continue to wear Kree colours, so he'd moved towards an assortment of soft greys – silver, almost – and muted blues. She opened it up and began to check all the places she knew there were concealed pockets, as well as anyplace she knew a pocket could be added. Carol had her own assortment of uniforms now, but she still wore the Kree suit regularly and she had an easy time searching his.

More weapons – two knives and five handheld grenades. Another, smaller set of lock picks. A deceptively innocent-looking gas bomb. She checked the small pocket on the chest last; it was an inner pocket, living right beneath the star emblem, so small it couldn't hold much, but she found something anyway.

A single pale blue tablet encased in digestible film; she held it up to the light, frowning. It looked like a suicide tab, similar to the ones Kree spies carried. Well, she was glad he had decided he'd rather go to prison than kill himself the last time he was captured. She made a mental note to dispose of the tablet as soon as she could; its presence made her nervous.

There was something else in the pocket, though, and it shocked her more than the suicide tab did: a jagged piece of metal. It must have been sharp, once, but time – and his touch, perhaps? – had worn it down. She ran her fingertips over it. She recognized it, both from having seen the other piece, and that she had once proudly hung it, whole, around her neck. It was a shard of her old name tag. _Vers_.

She wasn't sure what possessed her to do it, but suddenly she was barging into the bathroom and banging on the side of the shower stall. She heard him curse in surprise over the sound of the water. “Yon,” she called. “Can I come in?”

The place was full of steam. She watched him swipe a clear patch on the glass so he could glower at her. “This can't wait another five minutes?” he asked.

In answer she opened the stall door and got in there with him.

One of Carol's pet peeves from her life on earth had been the showers; she'd always used a shower with an angled spray, which meant a part of her body was always sticking out from the water, wet and cold. She'd fixed that when she was working on her ship, making sure the entire stall seemed to be enduring some sort of hot, tropical rainstorm whenever she turned it on. It also wasn't very big. That meant that when she got into the shower she was very close to him, almost up against his chest, faces inches apart. And he was dripping wet.

Staying on track could be a problem. She really ought to have waited until he was done.

She took the shard of her name tag and slapped it onto his chest. Rivulets of water pouring off his collarbone diverted over the back of her hand. She was quickly getting soaked as she stood there in her underwear and tank top, her hair turning into dripping strands plastered to her face. She probably looked half-mad and about as intimidating as a wet cat, but she soldiered on.

“Why do you have this?” she asked.

His mouth twisted slightly. Clearly, he was displeased she had found it – or that she was parading it in front of him, maybe, instead of silently putting it back, because he had to have known she would find it. “I took it the day I brought you back to Hala,” he said, pushing his wet hair out of his eyes.

“I know that,” she replied, annoyed.

He just looked at her. He was a master of staring contests. She pushed him back against the wall, but she could only be so forceful with him – it was wet and slippery and she didn't feel like getting either of their heads cracked open. “Why did you _keep_ it?” she asked. “After everything that happened? Just tell me.”

She was not leaving until he answered her. Finally, he touched the back of her hand, pulled it away from his chest. He closed her fingers around the scrap of metal. “So I could give it back to you,” he said. His voice was so soft she could barely hear him above the roar of the shower. “Because it's _yours_ , Vers.”

Now she was the one staring at him, eyes tracking over his face, looking for any sign he might be lying. He didn't appear to be. Those two statements, were they connected, or separate? His grip on her hand tightened, slightly. She leaned into him. She didn't want to think anymore, didn't want to drown in all of her doubts and fears and memories. She wanted something else.

She kissed him, and it was fantastic.

It was clumsy at first – it had been a long time since she had kissed anybody, and probably the same for him. But they fell into it easily. She felt his hand on the side of her face, cradling her cheek, and she let herself relax into his touch.

She'd dropped the name tag in favour of running her hand up his chest to rest lightly on his shoulder. The other she slid into the wet strands of his hair. He wasn't that much taller than her so it was easy to pull him down a bit, deepen the kiss. It was so good. His mouth was hot and wet and she thrilled at his tongue, and the way he tugged a bit on her hair.

Then her brain caught up with her and she pulled away from him. She didn't really want to break the kiss, and neither did he, because for a split second he tried to chase her with his mouth.

“Sorry,” she said, breathlessly.

He must have seen the flight in her eyes. “Vers,” he began, reaching for her, but she side-stepped him out of the shower and slammed the stall door shut with a bang. Her heart was racing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carol, my beautiful dumbass <3 I hope my headcanons aren't too wild for you, but let me just get it out in the open: my version of Carol is a beautiful, competent, unapologetic mess and she is _proud_ of her llama pyjama pants, no matter what Yon thinks of them. Just... be prepared for more of that idiocy as the story goes on. No porn yet, but I swear folks, there will be porn in this story soon.
> 
> If you've never listened to Sixteen Stone by Bush you should fix that. Also if you haven't heard Track 8, ['Testosterone'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfPRX_FSWcQ), check it out and you'll know exactly why Carol finds it so funny when thinking about Yon.
> 
> This is the part where I mention again that I know very little comic history about Carol and the Kree. While that might change soon, keep in mind some things might disregard comic book canon entirely and if that happens, I'm sorry, I'm just using artistic license and of course I don't know what I don't know. For example, I'm not sure how the Kree view suicide, but I figured in an empire that was proud and military focused, picking an honourable death over capture in important covert missions may not be unusual. The tablet Carol finds in Yon-Rogg's suit is just an form of the suicide pill many world armies have used in history.
> 
> Also one of my lovely readers [DREW FANART FOR ME AND I LOST MY SHIT](http://vodkertonic.tumblr.com/post/183524745609/ooooohhhhhmygod-so-i-got-sent-some-fanart-from) it's from a scene in the last chapter. Please take a look at it <3
> 
> You can see some of the magic happening over at vodkertonic.tumblr.com and by magic, I mean 'how did I get here? What is this place and why is everyone staring at me?'


	3. the rules of engagement

She was in the belly of the ship, hiding from him.

He could be breaking into her security system, or taking control of the ship, or putting poison in all of her food. He could be doing anything up there, but did Carol care? No, because she was an idiot and completely unprepared for the fallout of kissing Yon-Rogg. So she was in storage, cataloguing... everything... what was that? Was that just a single boot? She picked it up, frowning, and shook it; something jangled around inside. She turned it over and a fork fell out. God, she really needed to clean down here.

Her ship was two levels, the upper being living area, the bottom holding storage, engine maintenance – all of the fussy stuff. It was a good place to hide if whoever you were hiding from didn't bother looking. She was hoping Yon would do just that. She didn't know who she was angrier with, him or herself. He just... _had_ to be the way he was, and it irritated her. She was aware it was all mostly her fault, seeing as how she had reconnected with him and then decided it was a good idea to take him on as some sort of past-mentor/current-hostage. But still.

She heard the noise of feet above her, coming close to the hatch that lead down into the bottom level. She sighed. “Vers,” he called down the set of steps.

“I'm busy,” she called back. She didn't even bother correcting him for not using her actual name, she just wanted him to leave. Partially because she was still angry – mostly at herself – but also she wasn't wearing pants still and her hair had dried in a snarled, fuzzy halo while she had been crawling through all the junk and mechanics. Better to hide.

“You know, I thought as much,” he said. His tone was flat; he was making fun of her. She ought to go up there and slap him. “But it's been almost an hour. I thought perhaps you had died.”

“Yeah, well. Busy.”

He was silent for a moment. Would he go away?

“Vers,” he tried again, this time layering his voice with concern. “You need to help me with this bandage. It needs replacing after you mauled me in the shower.”

“It's waterproof!” she called. “And I didn't _maul_ you.”

Then she heard it – a tearing noise, loud and unmistakable.

“Well it _just fell off_ , actually,” he said. “I'm going to go bleed over something. Your bed, maybe.”

Swearing, she climbed over a few piles of junk and sped up the metal steps, two at a time.

She half-expected him to be standing over her bed dripping blood on the covers, or somewhere equally ridiculous, but instead he was just waiting at the top of the metal stairs for her, arms crossed over his chest. She noticed he had his right hand pressed against the inner elbow of his left arm with the remains of the first bandage, staunching whatever bleeding might be happening.

“Hello,” he said. “Got lost down there, did you?”

“Oh, shut up,” she said, grabbing him by the shoulder and turning him away, giving him a shove towards the bed. She'd gone and left the medikit on the side table, so at least she didn't have to get it out again. “Go sit down and I'll fix it.”

She went and cleaned her hands of all the dirt and grime she'd picked up down below, then returned to find him sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for her, still gamely putting pressure against his cut. He had changed into a pair of black pants and a black t-shirt, and he looked disgustingly comfortable.

She grabbed up her medikit and stood over him, motioning with his hand to stretch out his arm. He did so, and she grabbed his wrist and held up his arm. As she suspected, he'd torn the stitches too. They were meant to dissolve as he healed, but he'd gone and ruined that now; if he'd left it for another couple of hours, with how fast his body naturally healed, it would have been fine. She shook her head and went through her kit.

“You think you're so clever,” she muttered.

“It was somewhat clever,” he pointed out. “You have to admit, it got you back upstairs. Ow!”

“Don't be a baby,” she said, putting the antiseptic swab, now stained blue, aside. He was bleeding but not too heavily, so she would be fine as long as she worked fast.

She pulled out a pair of tweezers. She realized she might have to redo the stitches, but first she had to take the old ones out; now they wouldn't dissolve properly without leaving scar tissue. “You did this to yourself. Hold still.”

“I am holding still,” he said.

She was feeling less charitable now, as she tugged the broken stitches out of his skin, strand by strand, watching him refuse to wince. Before she hadn't wanted to do the surgery when he was awake to avoid this, now she felt like he had it coming.

“You brought this on yourself,” she repeated, tugging out the last of the stitches. “You were already healing. You've gone and fucked it up. If you'd left it as is, you'd have been fine by tomorrow.”

He hissed as she swabbed the wound again. “It was worth it. You were hiding.”

Lying wouldn't do her any good because he could see right through it; then again, Carol had always been full of shit around him even when she was Vers and it had never bothered her. “I was busy,” she said.

She considered his arm carefully. It had begun to heal; it seemed less deep than when she had first attended to it. But the surface of his skin was not doing so well. She _could_ just pack it was gauze... “Stitch it,” he said, reading her mind. “It'll heal better that way.”

“You sure?” she asked. “I don't have anything to numb it.”

He shrugged one shoulder.

Well, it was his choice. “Are you going to show me how tough you are?” she asked, going through the medikit, pulling out a fresh set of stitches. She began to thread the curved needle.

“Pointless. You already know.”

She sat next to him so they were sitting side by side on the edge of the bed, the sides of their hips pressed together, and stretched his arm out into her lap. She focused on aligning everything correctly before pushing the tip of the needle into his skin. She didn't look up but she sensed him turn his head away.

It was natural, she supposed, to feel sympathetic enough to want to distract him. “Can I ask you a question?” she asked, as she worked.

His reply was tight; he was focusing on anything but the needle and thread. “You never stop.”

“Do you _not_ call me Carol because you just like to piss me off, or is it just habit?”

“You mean, is it a habit of mine to piss you off?”

“You know what I mean,” she laughed.

She could hear the smile in his voice, and that made her want to look at him; instead she focused on her work. His smile was present more often on his face than in his voice. When she heard it, she could tell it was a _real_ smile. “It's habit,” he said. “I've only ever known you as Vers.”

“You named me.”

“You named yourself,” he corrected. “It's always been your name. Just not all of it.”

She supposed that was true. “I don't really like it,” she said. He didn't ask, which was good, because she wasn't about to explain. They both knew: Vers had never been her, just a blip in her life. She had always been Carol, deep down.

She knotted and snipped the thread. “Don't tear it off again,” she warned, starting to bandage it.

“Or you'll what?”

“Fix it all over again,” she admitted, since she _would_ , and he laughed. She grinned.

“I'll let it heal this time,” he said. He leaned towards her, carefully. “I promise.”

It came over her again; Carol found herself gently tipping her head to the side and she let him kiss her, because that was what he was doing, and it was lovely. It was very light, delicate almost, yet she felt the hair on the back of her neck rise and a tingle run down her spine. _Ah_.

After that they sat close, foreheads nearly touching. Would he kiss her again? Maybe he needed a clue. “What are you waiting for?” she asked, after a moment.

“That was an experiment,” he said. She choked on a laugh.

“You're an asshole,” she said.

“You're the one who refused to let me finish showering, kissed me, and then ran off. I think you're technically the asshole, here.”

Well, he had her there. “God,” she snickered. How had her anger just managed to... vanish? His presence or her natural ability to just move on with her life? Both, maybe. “How pissed off were you when I ran away?”

He gave her a flat look. “Very,” he said.

“I was pissed off too,” she said, not mentioning that the bulk of it had been at herself. “We have something in common. Are you still angry?”

“No. How can I be angry with someone who fixed up my arm after my bandage fell off?”

“You tore it off!”

He waved that away. “What were you even trying to do, cornering me like that?”

“I don't know,” she shrugged. “I just... wanted an answer, and I didn't expect you to say those things.”

The edge of his mouth flickered up into a smile. “Say what? The truth?”

“Well...” she fumbled for an answer, only to realize she didn't have one. For the first time in awhile, she was at a loss for a witty retort, mainly because she didn't want to give him one. It would be too cutting, too insulting, and she actually just... wanted to be nice to him.

To her surprise he moved to kiss her again, perhaps to save her from coming up with an answer, or maybe he just wasn't interested in what she had to say at that moment. Or he was trying to play her. And that was all fine. Her brain tried to tell her off, but as soon as she got up and moved to straddle his lap, that voice went completely silent.

This was actually something she could have foreseen happening very easily – something that could have occurred in her past. Perhaps another year or two on Hala and it would have. She'd been Yon-Rogg's favourite soldier but also, quite possibly, his favourite person. And honestly, that had been the case for her as well. She'd always sought him out, felt that he understood her better than anyone else. Though, that might have had to do with the fact he'd been the one to steal her from Earth...

His hands were going up under her shirt now, though, so she felt like that was a better thing to focus on.

He shifted further back onto the bed and she followed him, pressing him back against the pillows. Yes, this was exactly why she'd broken him out of prison. She nibbled playfully at his bottom lip. She could smell her own shampoo on him, which for some reason made him irresistible.

Yon tangled his hands into her hair and she hummed a little in enjoyment. She found some men didn't know how to properly give hair that little tug that had her shivering, but he knew what he was doing. “So,” he murmured, against her lips. “Can I call you Vers?”

“Mmmmn.” She shook her head. “No.”

“Never?”

“I'll think about it,” she amended, running a hand up and down his chest. Her mouth wandered over his cheek, up to his hairline. “Actually, I've been... thinking about other things, too.”

“Oh, no,” he said dryly. She nipped at his ear and he started in surprise.

Satisfied, she continued. “I was thinking that I haven't had a good partner in almost ten years,” she said, after a moment. “I think you might be a good fit.”

“So were those two prison visits job interviews?” he asked, and she recognized his tone; he was trying not to laugh. She smirked into his hair.

“Shut up,” she said. “I'm talking about work. I wouldn't mind having back up.”

He mouthed for a moment at her neck. “You're fine on your own,” he said, perhaps dismissively, but her instincts told her she was on the right track.

“A single traveller is always more of a target than a pair of them,” she said. “And I could use a tactical touch.” She tapped her finger against his temple; he snorted and pulled away from her neck, raising an eyebrow at her, but he didn't respond. “Well? Don't tell me you aren't aching for a fight.”

He leaned the back of his head against the pillow. “And if I am?” he asked.

She grinned. “Then what's the problem? Come on, you _know_ I hate being bored, sometimes I even go looking for a fight. And if we end up getting paid, I'll split it with you.” _And we can train together, like we used to_ , she thought.

“Tempting,” he said, “But credits mean very little when there's the problem of my being an escaped inmate with a record.”

She rolled her eyes. “I thought of that already,” she said. “We're on course for a spaceport where we might be able to find someone to fix that.”

“And you have no qualms about erasing my record?” His question made it very clear he thought she was full of shit, and she had to laugh because he was absolutely right to be suspicious.

“That's up to your behaviour,” she said. “And my judgement. And maybe... a few other things.”

“Naturally,” he muttered.

“I can always give you back to the prison,” she warned.

“You wouldn't.”

“I don't know, I can be pretty hot-headed.”

“You can,” he agreed. She whacked him on the shoulder and saw him tamp down a smile. “Alright. Let's sum this up then. A partnership, the terms being that I remain here with you, illegal but hidden, with the possibility of having my name cleared and I can get back to whatever I was doing before.”

“If you're good,” she added.

He leaned in towards her a bit. “I'm always good,” he said, lightly, his voice low, and goosebumps erupted down her spine. She pushed him back against the bed.

“I'd believe you if you didn't look like you haven't slept in three days,” she said.

“I was sleeping earlier, remember? You insisted on it. With drugs.”

“And before then?”

Yon looked annoyed and didn't answer.

She gently touched the shadows under his eyes with her fingertips, and that seemed to help to soothe away his irritated look. “You look like shit,” she said. Had he been doing that on purpose, after he had admitted to his dreams about her? She knew he could stay awake for days, a full week even, during the heat of battle, but it was never pleasant for him, and it took him some time to recover. Or maybe the lack of sleep was for another reason entirely.

He tried to brush her hands away. “I'm fine.”

She sighed. “You leave me no choice,” she decided, and laid down on top of him, tucking her face into his neck.

“Are you serious?” he asked, after several long, long seconds.

“Yup,” she murmured.

“You know I'm heavier than you.”

“And you know I'm stronger than you,” she replied. “I can keep you pinned for as long as I want. Now go to sleep.”

He muttered something but she couldn't hear it; she was so close to his chest she just felt a soft rumble. But she didn't move, and he didn't try to push her off. He could lay there awake the whole time if he wanted, or he could be smart and go to sleep.

She was tired, too; she hadn't planned her mission very well, it had been rather last minute, and everything was catching up to her. She could do with a solid sleep before they arrived at the spaceport. She shifted a bit, making herself comfortable on top of him, and smiled when she felt one of his hands settle on her lower back, as if to keep her there.

As she fell asleep, she puzzled over the name tag that had set the both of them off. The mystery of why he had kept it had apparently been solved, but just before she slipped into dreamless sleep she found herself wondering why he kept it right beside a suicide pill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They're dumb but at least they're cute.
> 
> sometimes I yell about these two over at vodkertonic.tumblr.com


	4. promise

It was raining, soft but steady. Carol crammed her worn, nearly-falling-apart SHIELD baseball cap onto her head, and then pulled the hood of her sweater up for good measure. She was not in uniform – honestly, Carol never felt the need to put her suit on unless she was expecting a fight or needed to announce herself, or was doing any other manner of important tasks. For the most part, though, she was happy to ease by largely unnoticed wherever she went. Infamy was fun, but so was anonymity.

She had left Yon-Rogg unsupervised on the ship, a calculated risk. He was locked out of all control and command systems, and more or less sealed within the ship itself, as if he were cargo. She could have brought him with her, which held its own issues; she also could have found a way to otherwise contain him (she had to admit to being tempted to just shackling him to the bed for a bit) but realistically she knew any bonds or cuffs she put on him he would manage to get out of in due course.

He hadn't liked the idea of her leaving him behind. Part of it was clearly the fact he'd been imprisoned for several years and he was itching to get out, but she knew he also balked at her doing anything without him and leaving him out of the loop. It was a role reversal from the Starforce days. “You'll have to trust me at some point,” he had pointed out.

“Agreed,” she'd said. “But some point is not this point. I'm letting you have full run of the ship while I'm gone, isn't that something?”

“Don't act like I can do anything in here,” he said. “We both know you won't leave me alone long enough to even have a chance at commandeering this vessel.”

“Well, I wouldn't want you to miss me,” she smiled. “I'll be back before you know it.”

She jumped over a puddle and continued her way through the streets. The spaceport was mostly that; a port, a place where people came and went. Businesses were mostly from other planets, renting out locations and setting up shop in a way that reminded her of the farmers' markets she used to go to as a kid. There were few people who chose to actually live there for longer than a contractual term.

There were some who did live there for as long as they could, though. From what she knew, the person she was looking for was still working out of the back of what was basically a brothel. She would be able to buy the software she needed, or barter for a favour. She'd done similar before; it kept her busy when things were quiet.

How long things would be quiet, she wasn't sure. Not just in the galaxy but between herself and Yon-Rogg, as well. There had been a moment when they had woken up, tangled together, that she had barely been able to restrain herself. He awakened a hunger in her she had not expected. She had hoped that by having him around her rush of feelings would ebb and even out. Instead, she had found herself getting out of bed as quickly as she could manage without it being obvious that she was attempting to get as much physical distance between them as possible before her hands did something she would regret.

“Get your shit together, Carol,” she told herself. She would see her contact, order supplies, then head back to the ship. Once everything was delivered, they were out of there; the sooner they were back in deep space, the better.

Brushing rainwater off of her sleeves, she pushed open the door of the brothel and went inside.

 

-

 

It was just as well Vers had left him alone.

They had woken at the same time, because the ship had hummed and a beeping alert had sounded. “Ninety minutes to arrival,” a mild, womanly voice intoned. He tried to shift and move away but Carol very decidedly pulled him back. He felt her breath in the hollow of his throat.

She had been wrapped around him. They had shifted in sleep from their original positions but were still close; she had one leg hiked up over his thigh, and at some point she had put her hand up the back of his shirt, resting just below his shoulder blades. He'd wrapped his arms around her, so her head was pillowed on one of his biceps, the uninjured arm.

He was surprised at how long and soundly he had slept, especially with someone else. It was, no doubt, his exhaustion of the past week that had caught up to him. He'd always been notoriously terrible at sharing a bed with anyone. He liked his space and yearned for it even in sleep. There had been one memorable occasion in his youth where he'd taken a lover who had a bed meant for a single occupant; he'd woken up on the floor, because apparently that had been a more comfortable option for him than sleeping on or underneath someone.

“I know you're awake,” he said, after a moment. There was no way she was still sleeping.

She didn't bother to deny it. “Yup,” she mumbled.

Finally, after a few minutes, she'd shifted, wriggling around a bit, trying to get free of him. He leaned back, away from her, and her hands skated for a moment over his lower back. Their eyes met and he saw the hunger in them – but before he could do anything about it, she had rolled away and slipped out of bed.

Her touch had sent a shiver up his spine but also a flinch of pain, and he had been sure to tug his shirt back down before she noticed or suspected anything. He had tried to argue with her to let him come along – he wanted out – but she kept her distance, physically and emotionally, and as soon as they docked she was off of the ship.

At least she wasn't around to notice he was healing more slowly than normal. In fact, she'd been too distracted by everything – the prison break, his tracker, all of it – to see that he was not in his best shape. To be fair to her, what was left of the visible damage was entirely on his back, which he had been careful not to reveal to her.

In the bathroom, he pulled his shirt up and turned, looking over his shoulder to inspect his back. The last of the bruises were finally fading to an ugly yellow hue. He could feel it deeper, though, further underneath the skin. Any fractured bones had stitched back together, but his muscles still felt torn. The beating had come out of nowhere, a few days before, and he was still mildly curious as to what had set the guards off. From what Yon could hear in the hallways, he hadn't been the only one to suffer the treatment.

He didn't even bother to check on his arm. Normally it would have been fine to remove the bandage by then, but his body was working on overdrive trying to put him back together, so it was best to leave it as long as he could.

Since she was gone, he went through everything on the ship, which he was certain she had expected him to do anyway. Vers had always been an open book, and that hadn't changed. She had no shame about who she was or what she did and he had always respected that quality in her. Certainly she had secrets, but they were buried deep, like his own. Deeper, maybe.

First, he inspected the ship itself. From what he could see it was about fifteen years old, but had been constantly updated. With her skills, money was definitely not an issue for her. Her Terran tastes had affected many parts of the ship, at least in terms of furnishings.

Most telling was the voice that had woken them; apparently she'd gotten the idea from some Terran movie, and she referred to the ship as 'Mother' when she was talking to it. The voice commands were very limited, and he had no hope of breaking into that part of the controls – it only responded to Vers' voice.

He had no intention in doing anything devious; the odds were more favourable in sticking by her side and seeing where everything led, and she definitely was aware of that. Leaving her would involve a multitude of things that he didn't want to bother with – clearing his name notwithstanding, he would have to start from nothing in terms of money and transportation, and he wouldn't be able to do any jobs he liked while he was also a target for bounty hunters. Shielding himself behind Vers suited him just fine, at least until opportunities changed. He would be ready for that.

Still, he was curious about what was allowed to him. When docking the ship, he was apparently able to unlock the doors to the ship from the outside – as in, he could let people in, but not actually get out. There was an override for that. He was locked out of most of storage – where the weapons and other similar items were kept, no doubt – and she had doubled down security on everything except the most basic of tech, like lighting and water. She wasn't going to chance anything with him. That pleased him. She wasn't stupid – he was pliable to her in bed, but she knew very well that could only go so far.

He was doing his best not to think too much about how he responded to Vers. It was as if she knew what he wanted before he did. He had always found her rather attractive, which he had been able to disguise beneath his very real feelings of favouritism, but something had changed that day they had broken apart. She was something else to him now, and he found it thrilling. If there was one thing he had started to understand once he left the Empire, it was that he was allowed to want things. And, following that, he should feel no shame in taking what was offered. Powerful women had not been rare on Hala, but Vers was more desirous than they had ever been in every way now.

He'd gone over the ship, through everything he was able to get into (including her personal belongings, of course; she'd rifled through his, and fair's fair). Finished, he was sitting back in the pilot's seat, sipping a cup of coffee she had brewed earlir, and idly messing around with the controls (getting a lot of angry buzzing for his trouble). Then he heard – what was that? A goddamn doorbell? Bloody Vers and her Terran tastes.

Curious, he tapped the view screen for the outdoor cams to life, expecting to see her. Instead, he saw two men, green-skinned and with double frills over their skulls. Their clothes were an anonymous black. “Random inspection,” one of them said.

“Can I see some identification?” Yon-Rogg asked, mildly.

They showed him. Even through a view screen, he could spot a con.

“How many of you are there?” one of them asked.

“Just me,” he smiled, flipping the switch. “Come on in. Don't close the doors behind you, or you won't be able to get back out.”

 

-

 

It was a smaller ship, one that could hold no more than five or six crew, if that. They'd watched one leave, though, which was odd; in a small crew, at least a handful would leave the ship as soon as it docked. That suggested even less people than normal. Indeed, when they checked the public manifest, it was registered not to a company but a single person – Carol Danvers. Jot nodded at his partner, Axen, and together they opened the docking bay and made their way in.

They found the man they had been in contact with in the upper level sitting in the pilot's seat, boots up on the controls. They'd done a quick search, but it appeared he'd been telling the truth – he was the only one aboard.

“Greetings,” Jot said, as cordially as possible. “Where is the rest of the crew?”

“Oh, there's no crew here,” he said. “Just me.”

Axen frowned. “Who the hell are you, then?”

The man raised one shoulder in a shrug, took another sip from whatever his mug was full of. Some sort of stimulant, from the scent of it. “A house guest,” he said. “I'm a recent acquisition; one of the Captain's many, many rescues.”

A rescue. Jot relaxed, and Axen lowered his weapon. Clearly, this creature wasn't a threat.

“We're commandeering this ship,” Jot said, holstering his own blaster. He nodded to Axen, who produced a pair of shackles. “Bind him, and we'll get rid of him at the next stop. Might be able to get decent money for him, too.”

It happened fast. Jot turned away and took four steps towards the engine bay, and he heard the barest of scuffles. On his fifth step he turned just in time to see two things: Axen's body hitting the floor, and a fist. Then everything went black.

 

-

 

Yon stripped the first intruder of anything valuable with cold efficiency, taking money, drugs, weapons, and identification – fake and real. He did the same to the other one, then hoisted him over his shoulder, grabbed the other by the back of the jacket, and bodily carried and dragged them out onto the dock.

He thought about killing them for a moment, but figured that would be more trouble than it was worth. He settled for pushing them both off the dock where they plummeted for several hundred feet before getting caught in the dock's gravitational orbit. There; they would float around there until someone took pity and retrieved them. Hours, probably. Plenty of time.

He stood on the dock, considering his next move, and enjoying the feeling of rain on the top of his head – it had been so long since he'd experienced the elements of any kind. He could walk out of there and be gone. Vers would find him eventually, most likely, but he'd be able to give her a bit of a chase, with the added bonus of pissing her off.

There was something he wanted more than that, though; something he'd noticed when going through the ship. He checked his two new guns for ammunition, holstered one at his waist and tucked the second one in the back waistband of his trousers, hidden under his sweater. Then he turned and walked back into the ship.

 

-

 

Nothing seemed completely off, when she got back to the ship, but her instincts said differently. When she stepped inside she knew her gut had been right, because she scented rain; the doors had been recently opened. Yon-Rogg had been locked inside, which meant someone else had gotten in.

She charged up to the living quarters, ready for anything – an empty ship, a murder, a fight. Instead she saw Yon-Rogg sitting at her small kitchen table, a bottle of amber liquid in front of him, and two mugs.

“You're wet,” she said. His shoulders were damp; he had recently been outside. He must have unlocked the doors from the inside and then let someone come in, but there was no sign of who that could have been. There had been such a slim chance of that happening in the hour she was gone that she hadn't bothered with it – it would have required her to create a new level of security – but now she thought maybe she should have done it.

But why hadn't he taken the moment to escape?

“Rude,” he said, lifting one of the mugs to his mouth and taking a sip. She rolled her eyes.

“You went outside,” she clarified, coming closer.

And that bottle, it looked like one that was in her locked down storage. How had he gotten it? God damn it. She had underestimated him, somehow, and she needed to figure out how.

“I had a few things to do,” he said.

“Like what?”

“Taking stock,” he said.

“Why didn't you leave?”

“Why would I leave without my things?”

“You have them,” she said.

“Not all of them.”

He could have been referring to his weapons, but for some reason she knew what he was really talking about: the suicide pill, the one she had confiscated next to the remains of her dog tag. He wanted it back. It must be potent, she thought with a chill, if it had forced him to linger. Rare, expensive, or both.

Or maybe he had stayed because they'd brokered an agreement before going to sleep, but... he hadn't actually promised to abide by it, and she had not demanded he swear to do so. Or maybe he liked the promise of sex too much to bother to go just yet. But when she looked at his face, she knew that while some or all of that may be true, the fact of the matter was he still wanted that damn pill back.

She took a seat across from him. The other mug on the table was empty, she saw. “You don't need it.”

“I still want it.”

“You're not in a position to barter.”

In answer, he reached behind him, pulling a gun from under the back of his sweater and setting it heavily down on the table between them.

It wasn't hers. It wasn't one of his. Her eyes cut back to the bottle of liquor on the table; maybe that, then, hadn't come from her private stores either. “Where did you get that?” she asked.

“The drink?” he gave her a small, secretive smile. “I got my hands on some stolen identification and reported it to the spaceport authorities. One of them was very grateful to get her license back and offered the bottle as a gift. I told her she needn't have bothered, but she was quite insistent.”

“The gun.”

He sipped from his mug. She wanted to slap it from his hands, but that wouldn't be very mature of her. Still, she was close to doing it anyway. “Is that really the question you want to ask?” he said.

She sighed. He was so infuriating, but she supposed she could play his game. “What else have you got?”

“You'll find out when you return my property to me.”

“This is my ship,” she said. “I'll find whatever you have, wherever it's hidden.”

“And can you be sure you'll find all of it?”

She paused. He had a point. There was no way she could turn the whole ship inside out for an unknown amount of items, and not while he was watching her, looking smug. She wanted to punch him, a not unfamiliar feeling. She also wanted to knock him right out of the chair and have her way with him on the floor. Very annoying, how those two desires seemed to live side-by-side. “How can I be sure you'll tell me where all of it is?” she countered, leaning towards him and raising an eyebrow.

Yon-Rogg shrugged. He picked up the bottle and, at long last, poured into the other empty mug on the table. “You have my word,” he said, putting the cap back onto the bottle.

A more sensitive Carol might have snarled that his word was worthless, but it had been forty years since that fateful day in the desert, and she was a bit wiser now. Yon-Rogg hadn't been left with much after the debacle with Talos, but he had his honour, and he would have protected it. Still... “Why do you want it?” she asked, warily.

“Not to use on you, if that was your concern.”

It wasn't. Using it on himself, that was what worried her; but she wasn't going to tell him that. She took a sip from the mug he pushed towards her, felt the burn down her throat. Lowering her gaze from his face, she looked at the gun, laying there, quiet, nearly demure. She picked it up. It was a common enough weapon, with a few different settings. She set the mug down and, elbows planted on the table, held the gun in both hands, eyeing down the sight at him. He met her gaze, untroubled. She flicked off the safety.

“Bang,” she said, flatly. His lips twitched.

The tension was so thick, she couldn't stand it. It was aggravating, but it wasn't hostile. Sexual, Carol realized. Tension was nothing but a coil, a tightness in the air, and she felt it in her belly – had ever since she had woken up that morning and felt his warm, firm body against her own and between her legs. From where she sat across the table from him now she tightened her thighs together, hoping her thoughts did not show on her face.

But he could at least sense the tension too, like a shark scenting blood in the water. He leaned a little closer, until the tip of the gun was mere inches from his mouth. His eyes, which had always reminded her of a predator from their glint of yellow gold, were dark, his pupils blown wide. She badly, badly wanted to touch him.

“Cute, Vers,” he said, dryly.

Just like that, Carol felt the snap inside of her chest, reverberating all the way down to her stomach. She lowered the gun a fraction, thumbed over the settings, and blasted him full in the chest, off the chair. It wouldn't hurt him, but it would sting like Hell for a minute.

“Fuck,” she heard him groan.

She slowly pushed her chair back and stood, walking around the table to look down at him where he was laying on his back, hands to his chest, checking for blood. As if she'd kill him _now_. Carol dropped the gun and kicked it away before she reached down, grabbing him by the front of his sweater. She turned, thrusting him back against the table; he actually flinched, as if it hurt. The mugs crashed to the ground, but the bottle bounced against the floor and rolled, intact. Good thing it was capped, as well; she was going to want a drink after this, probably. “Wanna call me cute again?” she asked, mouth hovering over his.

“You're attempting to change the subject,” he breathed.

“Is it working?”

“No.”

“I'll try harder,” she promised, grabbing at his belt.

She expected him to bend to her will, to submit. But still he held her gaze, even though his own was unsteady. He licked his lips. “Carol,” he said, quietly. He must have known, then, that his misstep had been in calling her Vers, not cute.

She closed her eyes. She had been trying to distract him, yes, but herself also. “Why do you want it?” she asked, again.

“I have a right to choose my own death.”

Carol had been afraid of that answer, partly because she could not argue it. She opened her eyes and stared him down, so that he could not misunderstand her. “I'll never give you a reason to use it,” she promised.

“I know.”

 

They tumbled onto the bed. He helped her get her pants and underwear down over her hips. She kicked them away and then pushed him back, making short work of his belt. There was no seduction, no manner of foreplay; all she wanted was to have him inside of her as soon as possible.

Her nails scrabbled over his chest as she bucked herself on top of him, feeling his hands grabbing her around the waist. He kept her steady as she moved, wildly, losing herself in the thrust of his cock deep inside of her, shifting and moving to get the right angle. Her body quaked with the need to have him, and she was strung so tightly, her lust so impossible to quench, that when he came, when he called out her name – _Carol_ , it echoed in her ears – she was nowhere near finished with him yet.

She clambered off of him and threw herself back against the pillows, staring at the ceiling, panting. She didn't need to say anything – it was _so hot_ that she didn't need to say anything – because he knew, and in seconds he was kissing and nipping his way up the inside of her leg before pressing his face between her thighs.

She closed her eyes to better enjoy the hot slide of his tongue, the shiver of his breath against the most sensitive parts of herself. The seconds melted into one another to the point where she wasn't sure how much time had passed; she existed only as a thrumming hum of pleasure. When his tongue dipped down to lap at her, press inside of her, she wondered suddenly if he could taste himself – and that thought was so unexpected entering her brain that her whole body shuddered violently. Her hips jerked, her toes curled against the bed, and she came violently but almost soundlessly – yet she felt the distinct crack in her jaw at the 'o' her mouth formed.

Panting, she felt all of her muscles relax, and she dropped back against the bed. After a moment she registered Yon-Rogg pillowing his head on her stomach. Next time, or sometime soon, she told herself, she would take it nice and slow – enjoy every single moment, tease the moans out of him rather than ripping them from him. But she had felt such an urgency for him – not just for pleasure but to stake her claim.

She didn't know if he fully understood the extent of it – if he knew that even as Carol dominated him she wanted to keep him, shield him, protect him. He was hers and she'd be damned if anyone decided to come along and try to take him away, or give him a reason to use that fucking pill. Maybe he understood, maybe he didn't. It didn't matter. What mattered was he stayed, and that he wanted to stay.

At first she had been wary about their cohabitation, at the thought he might give her the slip, but she realized there had been such a simple solution staring her in the face the whole time. The problem, of course, would be getting him to admit to anything. She knew he wanted her, wanted to be around her and with her, but would he let himself make it official?

She reached down and carded her fingers through his hair, felt as much as heard his soft hum of pleasure. She smiled. She liked him like this, warm and spent. But she remembered what had brought them there, and she was not about to let it go.

 

-

 

They'd lain like that until she had to get up to supervise the delivery of the supplies she'd ordered. He'd actually fallen asleep for a moment, or maybe longer, with his cheek on her stomach and her hands in his hair. She'd woken him up with a nudge and they wordlessly got up, him taking a moment to watch her pull her pants back on, straightening herself out. He could still taste her.

He sorted himself out before he went to clean up the mess they'd left in the kitchen, the shards of mug and splashes of what passed for that spaceport's rum. The gun he retrieved and placed back on the table after flicking the safety back on. He had to admit he hadn't expected her to shoot him, and even though it had hurt beyond belief for about half a minute he found he'd been caught between it being amusing and arousing. She was unpredictable, and better men than him had found themselves susceptible to that kind of thing.

The bottle was unharmed, which was just as well. He was inspecting it for any chips in the glass when she came back, walking up to him and pulling the bottle from his grasp. “So,” she said. “I wanted to talk to you about your word.”

He watched as she went to the cabinets to find more glasses. Apparently, they were going to give drinking and negotiating another try. He was certain he'd had her, but then again, maybe she had changed her mind. “I told you,” he said. “I'll tell you where I hid everything.”

“Are you going to tell me where you got it?”

“Go check the outer security cams if you want. I simply took care of a few con men who were working their way around the port.”

“How altruistic of you. And you just helped yourself to their possessions?”

“I'm certain there's an unwritten rule that you forfeit ownership of anything as soon as you attack someone.”

She shrugged, pouring rum into two cups. “I hope you didn't kill them.”

“I put them in orbit.”

She coughed on a laugh, screwed the cap back on the bottle. She turned around and leaned back against the counter, motioning for him to come closer. He expected her to pull him in close once he was within arm's reach, but she kept her hands on the counter top.

“Alright,” she said. “I have a new deal for you. Tell me where you stashed everything, and I'll give everything of yours back to you – not just that fucking pill, but your guns, knives, explosives, all of it. All yours.”

He frowned. “I sense a catch,” he said.

She shook her head. “You'll give me your word you'll tell me where it all is?”

“I already told you I would.”

“And your word,” she said, “... your honour, really, I won't insult you by questioning it. But...”

Yon felt a faint flush in his cheeks, of anger – not directed at her but just a general feeling, an emotion that he couldn't help but feel. The Kree had made him a man of honour, and though they had turned on him, he could not turn on that. It was a part of who he was, a weakness and a strength. Vers knew that, and he hated that she was voicing it, dangling it in front of him. It was pride and shame, a combination of a military honours and dirty laundry. He wished he didn't have it.

“I know,” he said, shortly.

“So,” she said. “I want you to promise to tell me where the stash is, and I also want you to promise to stay.”

He felt his brow furrow. “What?”

“What we discussed, before we went to sleep,” she reminded him. “The terms of our agreement. You, staying with me, until I decide that you can go.”

“We already agreed that-”

“You didn't promise, though. I want your word.”

He hadn't. He looked away from her so that she could not try to dissect his expression from the front. It was stupid, so stupid – any mercenary could shrug and make a promise and break it the next day, but he was different. He was a warrior, and a part of him told himself he was _better_ than how far he had fallen, and yet it limited him. He was a slave to it.

“Well?” she prodded.

He could refuse, and then she wouldn't trust him. This would be like another prison. But if he agreed he was placing himself willingly under her command. It wasn't that he hadn't done that already – it was that now he would be admitting to it, acknowledging it.

“Yon,” she said.

“Fine,” he said, shortly, looking back at her. She raised her eyebrows, waiting for more. “I promise to abide by the terms of our agreement. I'll leave when you say I can.”

A smile broke out over her face. “Great,” she said, turning and picking up the cups. She handed him one. “Here. On Earth, we seal the deal with a drink.”

“I thought you shook hands.”

“This is better.”

That was true. He knocked back the rum and had barely set the mug down when she twined her arms around his waist. “Now,” she said, nuzzling his chest, “Where's the stash?”

He smiled. He'd always know she would give in – not that she would turn their bargain into something else, of course, but that she would at least concede to him. “It's all in the first place you'd look,” he said. “Behind your cereal.”

“... Of course it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those wondering why Yon-Rogg suffered a bit of a beating back at the prison, that had to do with his upcoming auction that Carol whisked him away from. The prison was documenting his advanced healing to justify the higher starting bid, and did the same with a few other prisoners. That'll come up in the next chapter.
> 
> Carol absolutely stole the idea of ['Mother' from _Alien_](https://alienanthology.fandom.com/wiki/MU-TH-UR_6000) and you bet she's gonna talk to her every now and then.


	5. control

They had left the port and were on their way, so she figured now was the time to put her ship – and herself – back onto some kind of schedule. “Mother,” she asked, aloud. “What time is it in San Francisco, California?”

“4:31 AM,” Mother's voice intoned back.

Hm, no, that didn't feel right. She knocked a few more locations around in her head. “Sydney, Australia?” She tried.

“9:32 PM.”

Nope, too late. Then she thought about Yon-Rogg's accent, which she had always found strangely enticing as well as familiar, and now she knew why. She bit back a grin. “How about London, England?”

“12:32 PM.”

“Perfect. Mother, please set ship's systems to a 24 hour Terran revolution, and the main clock to the time in London, England.”

“Done.”

It might be strange for anyone else used to space travel, but Carol still couldn't buck the habit of using a set clock to determine her life. It was a natural impulse, and she figured her ship, her rules – why fight it? When it came to what year it was she normally couldn't care less, but her internal clock worked like the lowly earthling she was.

She had also been aware of her own biology, so she had been sure to have panelling installed in the ship that would give off the right blend of vitamin-enhanced light to keep her healthy and cheerful. Now that the ship was on a specific clock, the settings would naturally lighten and dim the ship in a reflection of a daily cycle – the sun rising and falling. She leaned back in her chair and watched as the settings kicked in, and the lighting in the ship began to increase in increments beyond what it had defaulted to since she'd begun the mess of visiting Yon-Rogg in prison.

Soon it was light and sunny in the ship, just as it should be on a summer's day at half past noon. She let her head fall back and basked in it.

“You really are a simple creature,” he said behind her.

“Yup,” she replied.

When she turned to look at him, though, he was inspecting the nearest light panel, placed high up along the wall, with not a trace of condescending superiority in sight. “You put these in yourself,” he remarked, and she smiled; of course he would know what came with the ship and what she had altered to suit her purposes. “What's the energy consumption like?”

“Pretty low, actually,” she said, getting to her feet. “I run them through a solar battery that gets charged whenever I pass close enough to a star. I mean, most of the energy on the ship is solar, so I update the battery every time a better one hits the market.”

“It doesn't put stress on the life support systems?”

“Nah, everything's balanced pretty evenly. Besides, if I don't get my vitamin D, I get grumpy.”

A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “You don't say.”

She'd hoped to get that reaction out of him. She grinned. “Speaking of general health,” she said, nodding to his arm. “You could probably take that bandage off now?”

“Not yet,” he said, dismissively.

She blinked. “Are you sure?”

He gave her a look, suggesting that was a stupid question. “If you're asking if I can tell whether my arm still hurts, I can say yes, yes I can.”

That didn't seem right. She frowned, tipping her head to the side.

“What?” he asked. He wasn't looking at her, was still inspecting the light panel, but clearly he could feel her gaze.

“That just seems... slow.”

“Say what you mean,” he said.

“Is it a 'getting older' thing?” she asked. She almost phrased it like a tease, before realizing it was an honest question, so she may as well ask it genuinely.

He paused. Offended, or thinking how to phrase his reply? The latter, it turned out. “It is not a 'getting older' thing,” he said. “I'm just healing slowly. Might I ask you a personal question?”

She wanted to keep prodding him for answers, but she supposed she could take a moment to answer any of his. “Sure.”

“Are you not worried about pregnancy?”

Carol blinked rapidly, pursed her lips, and looked at the ceiling. She had not been expecting that, had hoped the question would never come up. Technically, the Kree weren't allowed to breed with anyone non-Kree, but he didn't exactly count as part of the Empire anymore, so she was hoping he would not be thinking about it. Really, sometimes she preferred irresponsible men – they didn't ask that many questions.

“No,” she said. “I'm not.”

“Are you-”

“No no no,” she held up a hand. “You get a question, I get a question. Those are the new rules I decided on just now. Why are you healing slowly?”

He frowned. “There is a lot to heal,” he said. “The more damage, the slower it can be. Why aren't you worried about pregnancy? Are you on chems?”

“Oh, I can't get pregnant,” she replied flippantly. “Not sure if it was the blast from the energy core, or maybe I'd never been able to – but it's a graveyard down there, I guess.” He offered her a mildly horrified expression at that choice of phrase. “But a baby's not in the cards, for me. Or any infections or diseases, for that matter, but that is definitely a result of the energy blast. And that Kree blood transfusion, of course – thanks for that.”

“I see,” he said, dryly.

“Now, what do you mean, there's a lot to heal?” she asked.

He shrugged one shoulder. “The prison guards gave me a bit of trouble the other day,” he said. “It left a lasting impression.”

She snorted. “What, did you mouth off to them or something?”

“No,” he said, mildly. “I don't know why they did it.”

“You're telling me they just rolled up and kicked the shit out of you?”

He shrugged again.

“Can I see?” she asked.

He raised his eyebrows at her, but he didn't comment. Instead he turned away and pulled the back of his shirt up, which explained why she hadn't noticed anything – he'd looked fine from the front, but apparently she ought to roll him over more often he he had successfully hidden it from her. She was willing to bet he would not have breathed a word of it if she hadn't gotten him to mention it.

His skin was mottled ugly shades of yellow, signalling he was nearing the end of the healing process. “Seriously?” she asked, exasperated, walking up to him. “You've been letting me toss you around and you've been like this?”

“Well, it's not like me saying 'ow' would deter you,” he replied.

That was a fair point, but she was still displeased. She'd have been gentler if she had known, wouldn't she? She held up her hands and caught his eye over his shoulder; when he nodded that it was alright, she placed her hands on his back.

“How long ago?”

“A few days,” he answered. She felt him tense under her hands when she pressed a bit.

For a moment Carol wasn't sure what to say. She'd seen him hurt before – she'd been the one to hurt him, sometimes, back in the days of Starforce. But he'd also been unshakeable in the face of danger. There was a particularly memorable experience where he fell out of an aerial pod during a mission. Well, a calculated jump, if you asked him about it. He'd taken so many hits for their team in Starforce that him still being in one piece was impressive.

But the idea of him simply being beaten did not sit well with her. She found it almost offensive. Didn't they know, she thought with irritation, just who they were dealing with? He was Yon-Rogg, one of the best commanders that Starforce had ever had; surpassing even his own family – famous in their own right – in terms of military skill and accomplishment. He had trained _her_ , taught her everything he knew about hand-to-hand combat. “Why you?” she asked, finally.

“Not just me.”

“What?”

“There were others,” he said. At his back, she could not read his expression, and his flat tone made it impossible to puzzle out anything else. “They went through quite systematically; they even took pictures. I'm sure that other prisoner you decided to free was on the receiving end of similar treatment; it would explain why she wanted to leave so badly.”

Carol's vision when red. “Pictures?” She could barely force the words out. “They took pictures?”

“And why do you care?” he asked.

She didn't know how to answer him, not with the truth. _Because no one should hurt you,_ she felt, _and b_ _ecause all your marks should come from me_. She wanted to brand him, mark him as her own. Everyone needed to know, especially him. She didn't want him looking in the mirror and see anything else but the evidence of her.

Suddenly he had turned and was facing her, pushing her hands away. “Tell me about the auction,” he demanded, tugging his shirt back down.

“What auction?”

“You're an abominable liar, Carol,” he said. “I don't know if it's just because you're too smart to play stupid, or too honest to play smart. One or the other.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “I don't know what you're talking about,” she insisted.

“That other prisoner mentioned an auction. I was waiting for an opportune moment to bring it up, and here we are. Is that the reason you came and got me?”

She rolled her eyes and said nothing.

“Don't insult my intelligence.”

“I'll insult you however I want,” she said, sullenly.

His mouth twitched. She wanted him to smile. Instead he walked away from her.

 

The problem was he'd gotten what he wanted from her: not a confession, but she'd likely ended up proving that his theory, whatever it was, had been right.

Maybe it was the same as her theory: that the prison, in preparation for auction, had gone through each valuable prisoner with advanced healing capabilities and decided it would be useful to record it. Perhaps Carol had gotten there before anyone had been able to take some 'after' photos to document Yon-Rogg's healing progress. For what he'd been listed for – specifically pleasure – that was a useful and expensive ability.

It left a sour taste in her mouth. What annoyed her was that it didn't count as slavery, not really – it was a prison term converted into a work contract – but to her that's what it seemed like. If it weren't for the moral implications of taking apart a prison, she'd have happily released everyone in the building.

She was alone in the pilot's chair, feeling restless but not wanting to go seek him out. Since their conversation he had spoken to her only once to ascertain where they were going and why – she gave him the vague quadrant they were headed, and added they were doing a favour for a friend. He was nonplussed by the non-answer, and then told her he was going to clear out some of the random debris she was keeping in the lower level.

“Why?” she'd asked.

“Because I need a place to train.”

And then he'd left her. It took Carol a moment to realize she was starting to sulk, and she wasn't entirely sure why. She felt like he had accused her of something, but wracking through her brain there was nothing specific said. She had subconsciously picked up on it, and it was bugging her, but since her conscious mind couldn't figure out what it was, she was just getting pissed off with no resolution in sight.

She had one booted foot up on the controls, jigging it slightly. She was ramped up despite having had a rather tiring day already. Why didn't she just go get him and release some of her pent up energy? Because – she realized with a grimace – she was wary of touching him now, knowing he was injured, was in far worse shape than she had assumed. And she felt guilty, too, for not noticing it earlier – she thought back to throwing him against the table, noticing his uncharacteristic flinch, and a flush of shame flooded her cheeks.

He deserved better from her. It was a strange thought that she would not have entertained a few weeks ago, but had now taken root in her mind.

Cursing to herself, Carol got out of her seat and started to do push-ups, prepared to do them until she collapsed, if only so she could burn through the restlessness twitching its way through her body. It was good he decided to be useful, she thought irritably to herself, and was clearing out a place to train. She _used_ to train down in the lower levels – there was the space for it – but she had gotten lazy. Lazy? No, bored.

She remembered thinking for a moment how good it would be to train with him again. She had never before, and not since, had a martial arts teacher as good as he had been. But now the thought filled her with doubt.

As she completed one set after another, the light within the ship began to change to late afternoon sun.

Her arms began to ache, but not as much as the fact he was keeping his distance. His promise to stick by her side should have left her feeling confident and pleased, but instead there was another undercurrent between them, one she could not name but only sense. It threatened to drag her under.

She didn't remember getting back into the pilot's chair and falling asleep, but apparently she had, because she was woken with a start by something dropping in her lap.

“I found that,” he said. “You might want to put it somewhere.”

She took the bundle up in her hands and blinked at it, blearily. It was her old flight jacket. She only had a moment to register its presence before realizing he was already retreating, and she was not in the mood for his silent treatment any longer.

“Yon,” she said, slinging the jacket over the back of her chair and moving to follow him. He'd already taken the steps to the lower level. The sun panels had long ago powered down; now only the most minimal lighting was on, leaving many parts of the ship as blots of darkness, interspersed with pockets of light.

Her boots made noise as she went down the steps, and she realized Yon-Rogg's step had been utterly silent. She saw why as soon as she descended; he was barefoot, a not uncommon sight from their shared past.

He'd noticed which area she'd once kept clear for her own fitness purposes, and had easily transformed it back to what it had been before. Mats lined the floor and he stood in the centre of the area, arms crossed, considering her.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” he replied, dryly.

She took a step towards him but he held up a hand to stop her, and looked pointedly at her feet. She sighed. “Gym rules on my own damn ship,” she muttered, toeing off her boots and socks and leaving them to the side before stepping onto the mats. Their smooth, plastic surface gave slightly beneath her weight; it felt for a moment like coming home.

“Your silent treatment worked,” she said, walking towards him. “There was an auction.”

“What?” he asked, amused.

“That's why I came and got you. The auction. And that's probably why they beat they shit out of you, so, I'm sorry.” She traced a finger delicately over his collarbone; he leaned away from her. “I'll be gentler until you're back in fighting shape.”

“Carol,” he said, and her name was almost starting to sound familiar on his tongue, and she liked it. “There was no silent treatment. You just have no patience.”

She scoffed. “Then why did you spend half the day cleaning and remodelling like some kind of gym fairy?”

“Well, I didn't know how else to breach the conversation,” he said, and extended an arm out to the training area. “I thought I'd bring us back to the beginning.”

“Nostalgic,” she said, dryly.

“Nothing of the sort,” he said. “I just realized we are going to get nowhere unless I start speaking your language.”

She frowned. “My language,” she repeated. She thought about the flight jacket he'd chucked at her to wake her up and rolled her eyes. There was no way he had expected her to just take the jacket and leave him alone again; he'd done that purposefully to get her to come down and see what he'd been doing. “Whatever; fine. We'll talk about the auction.”

“Not that,” he said. “I want to talk about the fact you were compelled to come and get me.”

“Well, why not?” she said. “What was I supposed to do? Let you go to the highest bidder and then go get you?”

“Why not? And why get me at all?”

“You know why,” she said.

He inclined his head. “I do.”

“Then can we just-”

“Just say it,” he interrupted. “You can't stand the thought of someone else having me.”

“That's not what it was about-”

“It was part of it.”

She took a deep breath through her nose, hoping he wouldn't notice and knowing he would. “So I'm a little possessive,” she said, casually. “What about it?”

He made a dismissive noise in his throat. “You got me to promise to stay,” he said. “And I'll stay. But you're demanding things from me without reciprocation, and I'm allowed to dislike it.”

“Am I not good to you?” she asked, lightly.

Yon-Rogg's eyes flashed. She had to admit she didn't expect it, but he struck her, square in the middle of the chest; next thing she knew she was on her knees, gasping, and Yon-Rogg was prowling at the other end of the mat. “What the fuck,” she spat, pushing herself to her feet. It had been a calculated hit; it hadn't really hurt, but it had knocked the wind right out of her.

“Fight me, Carol,” he said.

“What? No,” she said, thinking of his injuries.

“Why not?”

“You're not in top shape right now.”

“So?” he asked. “When we used to spar, you were never in your top shape. You were always limited. You're limited now.”

“I'm not afraid to use my powers anymore.”

“I'm not talking about that,” he said. She watched him raise his arms, languidly, and stretch. He was limbering up for a fight, she realized, even though she had no intention in fighting him. He could bait her all he wanted, but she was over it already. “I'm talking about your emotions.”

“ _This_ bullshit again?” she exclaimed. “I don't have anything to prove to you anymore. I don't need to beat you to show you I'm worth something.”

He considered her carefully, and she felt unsure. There was nothing of the arrogance she had once associated with him, when he spoke down to her – because, she realized, he wasn't doing that. He was trying to tell her something, on equal footing. Trying to create a line of communication between the both of them, standing there barefoot in the dimly lit ship.

“Do you know why I failed you as a teacher?” he asked, suddenly. She opened her mouth to say something sharp but then, just as suddenly, shut it again. “Because truth makes the best warrior, and your struggles were based on lies. That's why you never excelled, and never fully understood the Kree teachings. It's not your fault; it was ours, to expect we could make you live up to your full potential with all those pieces missing.”

“I understood well enough.”

“But I'm not trying to teach you right now,” he continued. “I'm trying to get you to be honest with me. So fight me, Carol. You've never been able to lie to me in a fight.”

“I'm not lying to you,” she retorted. She turned away from him; he wouldn't dare strike her with her back turned.

She was wrong.

He took her down so fast she barely had time to register it until she was face first into the mat.

“Remember when you were teasing me before?” he asked, from somewhere above her. “Back at the prison, you wondered if my bringing you to the Supreme Intelligence got me my promotion as a commander. The answer is no. I was a commander before you came along, and when you left, I lost it all. You didn't bring me up, Carol, but you brought me down.”

The way he said it almost made it sound like a compliment, and she didn't know how she felt about that, or the strange tingle that went up her spine. She planted her hands to the floor and got back to her feet.

She was ready this time when he struck, blocking several blows before he was finally able to get in past her guard and clock her on the tip of her chin. She fell back with a growl, caught his foot just in time before his kick connected with her stomach, and twisted, throwing him to the floor.

Yon-Rogg had always been a better fighter than her. There was a reason he was so popular and lauded in Kree society: he was not just good, he was the best. And yet, he'd known she was stronger than him, always had been. All she had to do was embrace it.

She ended up on the ground again, tasting blood. She swept her leg around, knocking his own from under him and sending him down. Then she had him, pinned to the ground, and she felt that rush – of adrenaline but also something else, something she couldn't deny any longer whenever she had him underneath her, no space between their bodies, their mouths close enough to start a kiss. She gripped his wrists until he flinched and she realized she no longer felt afraid to touch him, to get in close despite the fact he was injured. He wanted it, she remembered. He had been clear about it, not just whenever they fucked but earlier, when he acceded to her demands and promised to say. When he had submitted to her.

_When he had submitted_. The hair on the back of her neck raised.

“Admit it.” When he spoke it sounded less like a challenge, more like begging.

Carol paused. All of her senses were on high alert, a shiver of lust rushing down her spine. Admit what? She thought, furiously. She would admit nothing.

He shifted underneath her as if to throw her off but she pressed down against him. Without thinking she forced a knee between his legs and suddenly he went from fighting her to pliant, drawing in a deep breath with a shudder.

Yes, that was it. All she had to do what assert her dominance and he yielded. Her head was spinning and there was a tension deep in her lower belly, a hunger for him he woke inside of her with only the faintest of motions.

She shifted her body down against him, purposefully, rubbing her breasts against his chest, the top of her thigh between his legs. He twisted underneath her, seeking more friction, but she held herself aloft.

“This turns you on, doesn't it?” she asked, softly.

He groaned, arching underneath her, tipping his head back in a way that exposed his throat and made Carol's teeth ache. “Yes,” he murmured.

Feeling like she was practically humming with arousal, she dipped her tongue into the hollow of his throat, tasted sweat, mouthed her way up to his jaw. “Good,” she murmured, against his skin.

“And you?”

Instead of answering she pressed her knee upward and he shifted his hips and the noise he made this time was closer to a whine. She dug her teeth into his collarbone to stop herself from letting it all spill out – her lust, stoked to a fury in the face of his wantonness. He hid nothing from her, didn't even try to do so, and it was driving her crazy in the best way.

She teethed and sucked at his collar, imagining what it would look like once the bruises bloomed on his skin. Satisfied that she had left her mark, she leaned back a bit and smirked down at him – and was startled by the wildness in his eyes.

Their gazes locked. “There,” he said, softly; she sensed the undercurrent of a growl in his voice. “There it is.”

She lowered her head until the tips of their noses touched. “What do you see?” she murmured.

“Everything.”

“Everything?” she challenged.

“You know what you do to me,” he breathed. “Don't you think I notice what I do to you?”

Carol shivered and for a moment, felt unsure; but then a grin began to curl her lips as she realized the truth of it. “You do, don't you,” she remarked softly, reaching between them to tug at the waistband of his pants.

She allowed him to help take off her shirt, if only because she felt like she was on fire and she longed for the kiss of cold air. She prevented him from doing anything else though, focusing on getting him bare; just so that she could admire him, if anything. Yon-Rogg was more than handsome; there was a certain beauty to him, clothed and unclothed, and in Kree society where gender and sexuality was often blurred Carol could look back and see that he dealt with it in much the way she had herself, going through her training with the Air Force. It was sometimes assumed he earned respect from his beauty and his rank though connections, and Yon-Rogg used it to his advantage the same way Carol had, all those years ago, letting people mistake her for being pretty and stupid so that she could slide by unnoticed, and go in for the kill.

But she knew what he was, as others in Starforce had: the best of the best, focused and stalwart. His team was hand-picked and he loved each and every member in his own way, would bleed for every one of them, and that knowledge had been so important to Carol back when she was Vers, doing her very best to impress him, to earn his affection. Things were different now but he was still the most impressive man she had ever met, as world weary and stubborn as she was. And yet with just a touch, a push, a kiss, he let her take command, and it drove her absolutely crazy in a way she'd never experienced.

She kissed him fervently, almost desperately, wrapping one hand around his cock, scraping her nails down his chest with the other. He moaned into her mouth and tangled his fingers into her hair, and while she knew she was one of the most powerful women alive, nothing felt quite so intense as this.

“Fine,” she breathed against his lips, feeling both generous and obscene. “I'll admit it. Thinking about you with anyone else makes me feel downright homicidal.”

She pulled away from him, moving quickly, not wanting him to realize what she was doing until the last possible moment. But by now the rather rough way they went at each other was second nature, and he had no reason to expect she was going to change the game. After taking a moment to disentangle his hands from her hair, she grabbed him by the hips, shifted herself back, and leaned down to take his cock in her mouth.

For Carol, sucking cock had always just been something she did out of obligation, or to just get a man to shut up; she rarely got off on it. She'd known, though, that this would be different, because _he_ was different, because when he went down on her she swore he got off on it as much as she did. The weight of him in her mouth, the taste of him, made her want to shove a hand down between her legs, but she resisted. She would focus on him.

She wrapped her fingers around the base of his shaft, using the wetness of her own saliva for lubrication, and bobbed her head, creating suction. Was he really that loud, or was she just so tuned in to him that his moans filled her head? In any case it was hard to concentrate on anything else. When his hands inevitably went for her hair again she let him, shivering when he tugged just so, the mixture of pain and tension producing pinpricks of pleasure down along the base of her spine.

She pulled her mouth from his cock with an obscene sound, moving to slide her tongue up along the underside, and looked up at him. He was watching her closely, pupils blown wide, his face flushed. She'd never seen that expression before, halfway between lost and found. She grinned like a wolf at the door.

Pumping her hand up and down his cock, she moved up to bite at his lips, already swollen from his teeth and her own. “Taste yourself,” she ordered, and he kissed her so fiercely she almost let herself collapse on top of him; she caught herself on her elbow at the last moment, holding herself aloft.

“Good,” she breathed. He was an utter mess beneath her, groaning and sweaty, so distracted she doubted he could say his own name, and that was just what she wanted. When he came he bucked beneath her and she had to hold him down, murmuring praises against his throat.

This was it, she realized. He belonged to her, yes, but she was tied just as tightly to him, and the thought pleased her. She wiped her hand on his stomach and admired him for a moment, laying limp on the floor, breathing unevenly, and watching her.

She was hot and wet between her thighs, her heartbeat racing. She wanted him inside her, wanted to fuck until she could barely move. They weren't finished, not by a long shot. “Bed,” she commanded. “I'm not done with you yet.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more chapter to tie up loose ends, but don't worry; this series isn't over, not by a long shot.


	6. onwards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I had terrible writer's block so this took me forever to write and when I finally did, I didn't want to waver too long before posting so I only gave it the quickest of edits. Apologies for any mistakes you may find, I'll try to fix them up later if there are any.

The panelling that she had programmed through the ship had started to glow warmly, like a sunrise, which is what woke her. Her face was tucked somewhere against the pillow and his shoulder; when she lifted her chin to look she saw he was laying on his front, one arm and leg right off the side of the bed, and she was spooning against his back. She had her leg up on his hip.

She was too sleepy to laugh, but it was funny as Hell. She'd probably crowded him so much while they'd slept she'd almost forced him off the bed. “Hey,” she mumbled, groggily, tracing a fingertip down the back of his neck. “You alive? Did I kill you?”

He twitched awake at the ticklish sensation. “Stop that.” The words came from far away or, more accurately, through a pillow. She smirked into his hair.

She propped herself up on her elbow, careful not to disturb him, picking the sleep from her eyes. His back now held only the faintest suggestions of bruises and she ran her fingertips gently over the planes of muscle. “You'll be just fine soon,” she murmured.

“What's that?” he began to shift, but she touched his shoulder to signal him to stay.

“Nothing,” she said. “I'm going to make coffee.”

She rifled quietly through her clothes, pulling out a t-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts to wear. Scraping her hair back into a ponytail, she took one last look at him – resisting the urge to just get back into bed – before meandering out towards the kitchen.

She felt the strain in her whole body as she walked, but it was a pleasant soreness. When done right (and Carol liked to think she did it right) sex was a workout, and she definitely hadn't stretched afterwards. He was probably worse off, which was why she'd decided to leave him be.

As the coffee percolated, she reflected that the confusing versions of Yon-Rogg she knew on Hala and the Yon-Rogg she knew now had finally merged, and it left a strange tenderness in its wake. He'd always been good to her. Even though the rules had changed – for all professional intents and purposes, on the ship she was now the superior officer – she now knew that would remain the same. That it always had, all through the past forty years. Carol had just needed the time and the distance to let some of the ugly stuff between them fall away. He'd probably needed it, too, when she thought about how he'd looked at her when she'd sent his entire world falling apart.

Despite that, though, so few people had genuinely supported her in her life and he had been one of them.

She stretched, feeling some of her joints pop, then bent forward, wincing at the stiffness in her muscles, wrapping her arms around her calves to give her lower back a good stretch. She straightened up when she heard movement, surprised he had dragged himself out of bed so soon. “How are you feeling?” she asked, grinning, before fulling standing up straight and getting a good look at him. He was only wearing a pair of boxers. Her grin turned into her mouth falling open for a second.

“You're leering,” he said, rubbing at his lower back with a grimace. The movement made his muscles flex.

Carol closed her mouth, then promptly opened it again. “You're flaunting,” she accused.

He gave her an amused look. They both knew Yon-Rogg did not _flaunt_. “Don't couples kiss each other in the morning, or is that only on Hala?”

“Ooh, we're a couple?” she teased, but was not-so-secretly delighted. She turned and boosted herself up onto an uncluttered part of the kitchen counter. “Make it all the way over here, first.”

“I'm not _that_ sore,” he said.

Once he had fitted himself between her legs and they were kissing, all snarky thoughts fled her head. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and shivered at the warmth of his hands, spread over her back. She barely resisted wrapping her legs around him, because she didn't trust herself not to get carried away.

Instead, behind his back, she rubbed her fingertips together until they started to glow, then touched them between his shoulder blades. He started slightly, but only in surprise; she hadn't gotten her hands hot enough to burn him. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“I'm giving you a back rub,” she said, smoothing her palms down his back, grinning.

 

He was in the shower while she sat at the table, reading an amalgamation of reports and news stories on her tablet. Carol had been in there before him, her hair still damp around her shoulders, and she _still_ had to tell herself not to go in there and ambush him. Boundaries, for one thing. Also, he'd turned into complete and utter putty when she'd rubbed his back with her photon-warmed hands, which meant she'd had to kiss him again. And then things went from there. Well, from the counter to the kitchen floor, to be exact.

She nibbled idly at her thumb nail and flicked her way through a few more stories. If they just kept having sex, which one of them would run out of stamina first? She had a feeling if she really wanted to find out, one of them would rather die from exhaustion than admit defeat.

A scuttling, beeping noise caught her attention and she looked up, setting her tablet down. She got to her feet and went to the pilot controls, scanning the screen.

“What is that?” she heard him call to her.

“Distress signal,” she called back over her shoulder. “Time to get suited up, hot cakes.”

 

“Don't call me hot cakes,” he said, as they stood in the docking bay, checking their weapons.

They were both wearing their Kree suits, but in different colours, of course. If she squinted though, it felt a bit like old times, except for the part where she could get away with even more shit than before. “Pretty please let me call you hot cakes?” she asked.

He sighed.

 

-

 

The ship was smaller than Carol's, but it obviously had a few more individuals living in it judging by the amount of stuff everywhere – crates, food stores, abandoned clothes and boots strewn all over the place. _Had_ being the operative word, because not only had they received no resistance (or assistance) docking their ship to this one, they discovered a body in the first corridor they entered.

“Dead?” she asked, as he checked.

He nodded. “Clean, though,” he said. “Crushed throat and not much else.”

They carefully stepped around and continued on. He took the lead, and her presence at his back was strangely comforting. In Starforce, he'd never been worried to have her covering him; he'd known, intrinsically, that she would never let anything happen to him, and he often wondered if she felt the same when he covered her.

Ships, like houses, tended to be built in similar patterns, so they made their way to what he felt should be the command centre of the ship. Though everything seemed abandoned, his senses were on alert, and he paused at the entry to the command area. He signalled to Carol, who nodded, and eased herself closer to him. She had not lost her stealth.

From his vantage point the place looked empty, but he couldn't be sure. Quickly, lightly, he crossed in front of the open entry, stealing a glance before tucking himself along the far wall. He made eye contact with Carol, held up a single finger before flashing the palm of his hand. She nodded again. _One person, possibly armed_.

What kind of person put up a distress signal and didn't notice when it was answered? It was the makings of a trap, but Yon-Rogg didn't feel like that was what was going on, here.

 _I got this_ , Carol mouthed, before stepping boldly out into the open entry. Yon-Rogg kept himself close to the corner so he could keep an eye on things. The person inside was standing over the main controls, their back to them.

“Hi, excuse me,” Carol said, brightly, rapping her knuckles against the wall to get their attention.

The person shrieked and whipped around, revealing herself to be a young girl, barely of the age to be left on her own at home, let alone on an abandoned ship. Seeing Carol standing there, she made a grab for something next to a keyboard, and Yon-Rogg was already out and with his gun raised. Sure enough, it was a blaster she pointed unsteadily at Carol's chest, though her eyes went round with surprise to see that in the second she had turned away the number of intruders had gone up to two.

“Whoah,” Carol said, holding her hands up. “Easy. We just came to help. You _do_ need help, don't you?”

“Who are you?” she demanded.

He knew that Carol could take gunfire and be just fine, but he'd rather she wouldn't. Still, she was courting it as she walked forward into the room, easily, looking around. She was forcing the situation into something calm, like pouring sand on a fire. “Kind of a mess in here,” she marvelled. “Was there a fight?”

The girl bit her lip. “Yes,” she said.

She looked a bit of a mess, hair mussed and smudges on her face that might have been dirt or smoke cut through with streaks of sweat. While the ship was definitely heavily scarred, most of it was old, but Yon-Rogg could smell fresh metal and smoke that could only have come from a recent firefight. Had she been caught in the middle?

“So can we help you with anything?” Carol asked, gently, looking pointedly over at Yon-Rogg.

The girl said nothing, but her eyes drifted over to the keys she had been bent over moments ago.

He holstered his gun on his thigh, and held up his hands. “May I?” he asked, nodding towards the ship's control centre.

She hesitated. “If it's broken, he can fix it,” Carol assured her; he wasn't entirely sure he could but, then again, Carol knew the girl was likely better off with only positive statements for now.

“And neither of you are going to shoot me?” she demanded.

Carol grinned. “Nah,” she said. “If you don't believe me you can keep the gun on us. But let me just say shooting me won't do you any good so if you're gonna open fire, aim for him.”

“Hilarious,” Yon-Rogg said. He walked around the girl, keeping a wide berth, and purposefully looked anywhere but the gun in her shaking hand. She eased aside to let him in. Only when he was at the controls, and she at his back, did he hear her put it down. He relaxed. She wasn't a fighter, but nerves caused as much calamity as intent did in tight quarters.

“I'm Tara'a,” she said.

“Carol,” Carol said, easily. “And that's Yon-Rogg, my beautiful stick in the mud. What got you stranded out here? Something to do with that stiff we found in the corridor?”

“He kidnapped me,” she said, quietly. “I tried to get away.”

Yon-Rogg considered the controls. Two laser blasts had burnt streaks across the main board, but the damage was mostly cosmetic. He was familiar with this type of craft; it was old and outdated, finicky to manoeuvre, but there were thousands of them still in use from how much damage they could weather. He quickly pulled up diagnostics to see if the ship was bleeding in some way, but it seemed fine. Life support was good, charged up to last through several jump points. The ship was missing the escape pod, though.

“I tried to direct it back home, but the controls are too strange,” Tara'a explained. “I've been trying to figure them out. I don't know how to input my home planet's coordinates.”

“What's your home planet?” Carol asked.

“Sy'gyl,” she said.

Yon-Rogg didn't look up from his work, but he felt the press of Carol's glance. The two of them certainly wouldn't be going there – Sy'gyl had once been a planet occupied by the Nova Empire before Xandar was decimated a little under two decades before, but its secure files might still be intact and in use. If there was anyone who had as many records on him as the Kree, only with a lot more antagonism, it was the Xandarians.

He smoothed his hand over one of the grooves blasted in the metal. “Did you turn on the distress signal?” he asked, a theory growing in his mind. He looked over his shoulder at her, where she was standing next to Carol.

She looked confused.

“You didn't know it was on?” Carol asked. She glanced over at Yon-Rogg and she met his gaze; he saw comprehension flash across her face before he looked away and began to see if there were any security feeds. They were there, but he was unable to access them without a bit of trickery.

He knew that Tara'a had not caused the body they had found, and now he wondered whether there were more. Whoever had gotten her out of whatever situation she'd been in had been kind enough to turn on the distress signal for her and leave her with some weapons – before taking off with the escape pod. They were in very active space at the moment, so whoever it was would have known Tara'a would have been able to hail help sooner rather than later.

Carol spoke quietly with the girl and he heard them begin to walk away; a more private discussion, then.

He set to work on the controls. Mechanically they were good, but the software had scrambled during whatever fight had occurred. Leaving Carol to the infinitely more difficult task of getting a teenage girl to speak the truth to a complete stranger, Yon-Rogg flipped a few switches and did the first thing any former Starforce commander and space-travelling mercenary would do in this situation: he turned it off and then on again to see what would happen.

 

-

 

There were two more bodies, stuffed – literally – into a janitorial closet. It was like no matter where anyone went in time and space, the old stereotypes never died. When she opened the door she had to step aside as the bodies cluttered to the floor like a pair of improperly balanced brooms.

Like the first body, these two were men, and they had been killed cleanly and efficiently – this time with single shots to the chest and then the head. Tara'a admitted that she had known the group of men – they had been in her hometown for a few weeks, living in the local hotel where she worked as a cleaner. They had used that trust to steal her away almost a week ago. They hadn't touched her, for reasons of money. Carol's stomach turned.

“So what led to this?” she asked.

“There was a distress signal,” Tara'a said. “They found a really small fighter pod that was heavily damaged. They weren't going to help but then she hailed the ship and – and they saw what she looked like.”

“So they decided to be friendly,” Carol said, looking down at the bodies.

“It happened really fast,” Tara'a said. Her voice had gone quiet. “They had hidden me away – in this closet – but I could hear them. She must have figured it out or they might have tried to tie her up, I don't know. But she opened the closet and let me out and said she would leave me the ship and that everything would be fine.”

“How fast?”

“She was here for less than fifteen minutes. She left almost five hours ago.”

Carol whistled. “So, what, she put the bodies in here and told you not to say anything?”

“She said she was being followed.

“How did she leave, then?”

“She took the escape pod.”

Carol would bet money that Yon-Rogg had noticed that little detail straight away. “Come on,” she said, slinging an arm around Tara'a's shoulders. “We'll get you back on your way home.”

 

Yon-Rogg had been able to get the controls to work in a more sensible manner; he also had the exact coordinates for Sy'gyl memorized, which didn't surprise her. He could likely pilot them anywhere in the universe, which was why she hadn't been too forthcoming with the information on where they were meant to end up. He would try to tell her that wiping his record clean wouldn't be worth the risk – and he was wrong, obviously, but she didn't feel like having the argument even though she was convinced she was right.

“No stops, just straight back home,” Carol directed. There were no jump points between their location and Sy'gyl, so it would be a straight run for Tara'a.

The girl hugged her. Then she even went and hugged Yon-Rogg, who very gamely stood through it. That might not have surprised anyone who didn't know him, but Carol had seen him around a lot of young people – children and teenagers on Hala who wanted to join Starforce saw him as a role model, and he had an easy, friendly way of interacting with them. He was clearly uncomfortable with Tara'a, though, which seemed off. It was possible that the last time he'd been comfortable around children had been that last day on Hala, before they'd gone on the mission to Torfa. That would have been the last time any child saw him as a hero.

Back on her ship, Carol was about ready to ask him about it when he took her hand and led her towards the kitchen.

“Sit,” he said.

She liked being contrary, but he didn't say it in a commanding way, so she took a seat at the kitchen table and waited. She tried to pay attention to him and not just admire the way he looked in his battle suit. Honestly, the Kree colours had always suited him, but she liked the new ones better. It made him look like a living blade.

He swiped two fingertips over his forearm, activating his holographic screen. “I took advantage of your absence to make some copies,” he said.

“I figured you might,” she replied, cheerfully. “What have you got for me?”

He looked at her seriously. She was about to remark that he needed to loosen up when he flicked his fingertip onto a picture.

“As you can see, the security feeds were the bare minimum,” he said. “But surely you can see what I see.”

It was blurry, almost a shadow. The lighting was horrible and they were looking at someone walking through the hallway that she and Yon-Rogg had walked down an hour earlier, at the camera's edge. Long back hair, a leggy stride. She was missing the boring prison uniform, was instead wrapped in some sort of leathery outfit, but she was unmistakable even as a blur.

“Huh,” Carol said. “Well I'll be damned.”

“I guess we should be glad that the woman you released isn't the sort to kill young teenage prisoners,” he said, dryly. “Just space scum.”

“I've got a sense about these things,” Carol said, but she was feeling on edge. She had done it on a whim, but what, exactly, had she let out? “Do we know where she's going?”

“Coordinates locked in at ES-251,” he said. “Which, translated to Kree coordinates, is C-53.”

Earth, in other words. “Ah,” she said.

“Do you plan to follow?”

“Well,” she said, glancing aside. “Not _plan_ , per se. But. We will follow.”

He looked at her flatly, waiting for her to explain. And she would have, had he not figured it out before she could. “We were already going to C-53,” he said. “Weren't we?”

“Yep,” she said. “Jump point's pretty close. I mean, we're a little off schedule now, but we'll be back on course in no time.”

“And why were you taking us to C-53?”

“Well, why not?” she asked. “It's the only place in the galaxy where I know I can buy you a decent drink.”

“You're not telling the truth.”

She laughed. “I am, actually,” she said, getting to her feet. She dropped a kiss on the corner of his mouth on her way to set the ship back on course. “Best bar in the universe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end of this one! Don't worry, there will be more in this series. Earth and Yon-Rogg need a better, more proper introduction.  
> Any guesses about the mystery woman? Y'all know her.
> 
> Thank you to all my lovely readers who reach out to me both here and on tumblr. I mean I write these shenanigans for myself but I also write them for you! SO. SO THERE. THANKS AND LOVE YOUS <3


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